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DIY How to Repurpose old Pajamas to Tote Bags

A DIY, repurposed, Pajama Tote bag is adding spring to my step today, and a what a fabulous way to use up those old, faded PJs. Who knew!

Welcome to Trumatter, and also to this week’s #LeaveItBetterThanYouFound it- a series that we started a month back to showcase how simple hacks can instill fresh lease of life to everyday household, utility objects that have – in time- already fulfilled their intended purpose.

Because it’s important to rethink what we use and how we use it

The time is ripe. And if you do not do it now, there will be no planet B. While new things, trends and novelty is always a much welcomed change, we simply cannot sit on the fence discarding the old, thinking, we’ll see. The planet is already quite burdened with trash. Literally and figuratively; and I have written extensively on how much trash do we actually generate, everyday, and ways to reduce trash in my blogs which you can read for starters. I insist. Do read. That’s point A.

Point B is, it is extremely satisfying to make things. Atleast for me. I’d rather make stuff than going for a movie on a Saturday night and other than buying new materials, old materials whet my creative hunger for free.

And as I write, I am also finding a point C: handmade is beautiful! You can give gifts in these, go to market and beam at the sight of it full of veggies and because the pockets are retained in these bags, it makes for the perfect place to store those extra loose pennies.

Pretty good for an old PJ if you ask me.

Btw, did you know I am 💩 at sewing?

For all the lovely ladies who keeps asking me what is it that I cannot do (my husband and mom will tell you a bunch of other things)- it’s sewing, my loves. I faired so miserably in my school sewing project that I was asked to take extra classes. Thank god we didn’t have to pursue sewing or I would have been a failure. I cant even think of patterns or stitches and it all becomes a massive goop with me battling threads. You know, it’s great to be optimistic but there is no point being unrealistic.

Enter Ankita. My packing minion who also stitches beautifully! Infact it was she who came up with the design of sorts saying she saw something similar on youtube and we tried with the striped PJ day before to see how convenient it is. Then we went to shop with it and stuffed it with all kinds of things and it held perfectly well!

Success, implemented

Beaming at our success, today, we recreated the same at home with plain needle and thread to show you all the pattern. You can show this to your tailor or finish it in a sewing machine if you know how to operate one.

This is also going to be slightly photo and instructions heavy so I will jump straight in. Before my old friend digression catches me and I can never get out of its romantic arms.

Step by Step Tutorial of How to make a repurposed Pajama Tote Bag

First off, lay your jammies on a plain surface. Ideally, iron it but I am ridiculous.

Next cut it into a shorts length. Or Bermuda length. Haha. Do you remember bermuda? Oh, dear 90’s.

Reverse. At this point I am thanking Ankita to just be present. Imagine doing all this and simultaneously taking photos. Its very exhausting.

Very carefully, cut the pajama from the seam.

Gather the ends of the seam, from the inner thigh, and fold it in a fashion that the outer seams and inner seams are on opposite sides. At this point, the pockets will be on either side of the skirt like structure. Just follow her left hand. God, I would have shat bricks at this point.

Like this! Be excited, your tote bag base is 40% ready.

With a chalk, draw two straight lines on each side of the bag and cut from outside the line. This is to level it. You will level and cut the bottom next. But before that, stitch the sides. She told me this is to ensure there is no movement during cutting. It must be so 🙂

We didn’t have any white thread at home so we used yellow thread for demonstration purpose. Highly not-recommended.

Stitch the hemline. Next, you will round off the corner.

Basically take a inch from the side and bottom, bring in together and sew it. If you don’t do it, you will end up with a poky corner.

Reverse. Also, note the corner here. It’s like an X.

Next, cut a thin strip, fold the sides and fold it in the center. Stitch the sides.

Your handle is ready! Now to stitch it in. Also, note: Stitch the handles right below the border of your jammies where the drawstrings are so you can use its drawstrings to close the bag.

Repeat on both sides. At this point your bag is ready. But…but…its me. I gotta have roses in my bags too! Right? So I cut a scrap of white cloth and made a little rose for it. The tutorial you can find here.

And it’s so easy that even I can stitch this. Like this is fabric rose level negative 15. Plus, a very cool way of using scrap fabric too.

And now, after a million photographs, 1 needle poke, 2 cups of coffee and random discussions, our DIY repurposed Pajama tote bag is ready to jam with us.

Looks pretty cool in our little kicthen too; hanging and all with the little knick knacks. Or atleast that’s what I think. What’s more important is what could have gone straight to landfill is now a tote I would cherish for quite sometime to come. Perks of leaving things better than you found it I guess!

If you like this blog, do leave a comment or two. It makes our day. If you do end up making these pajama tote bags, do tag me, I love seeing your craft projects and it propels me to create further.

I shall take your leave now, ladies and gents. I have a home to run and a family to feed- though it’s skimmish tonight which I have given a lovely salad-y name.

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Rukmini

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