Happy Anniversary Morsbags!

Today is the 1st anniversary of the morsbag. Morsbags.com is a wonderful little grassroots organization that advocates the construction, distribution, and use of "morsbags" -- reusable fabric shopping bags.

The original idea was for groups of people to get together and sew the bags. I got involved through a swap on Swap-bot. The swappers worked together to produce the bags, but unlike most of the other morsbags pods (groups), they were spread around the world.

To celebrate the anniversary and help morsbags get to their 10,000 bag goal by today (they're currently at 10,482), I made over a dozen morsbags this week!

Instead of handing them out at the supermarket, I am promising to send one with any order from my Etsy shop. The offer runs from today through January 31, subject to quantities on hand. If you decide to purchase something and would like to pick out your favorite morsbag from the group, go to the photo on my Flickr site. Each of the bags is numbered. Just mention the number when you order. And then promise you'll use it whenever you visit the market!

Morsbags

I love the idea of Morsbags. They're homemade bags used for shopping. The idea is to use them to replace the nasty plastic shopping bags you get almost everywhere.

I'd love to make a bunch of Morsbags.... sew all day long and churn out a pile of them. But I know that's probably not going to happen. For one thing, I never have a day that's completely open like that. But I've joined two Swap-Bot swaps (one completed, one just beginning) for them. And... knowing how fixated I am on deadlines... that has really helped me sit down and make some.

For the first swap I made six. Less than I was hoping for, but my sewing machine started making nasty noises toward the end of the 6th bag. And that was the end of my sewing until it returned from the repair shop. The ones pictured (above left) with Henry are some of the first I made.

Since the first swap closed, I've made three more. Any time there's a swap where I think my partner would like one, I make another. The purple one is one of my most recent bags.

Now I just need to make a few for myself!