Linen Bread Bag

We’ve been running out of plastic grocery bags for trash and storing of food, so I googled a bit to see if cloth bags might work for bread. The consensus I found was that linen might work well so Mohan and I sewed up this linen bread bag from a medium-heavy weight linen sample I had on hand accented by a bias strip of a lovely vegetable print that I also had on hand. We used two lengths of cotton thread for the double draw string. Will report back on how it does on the bread — if it doesn’t work, it will be useful in other contexts. Details below:

Linen Bread Bag Tech Specs

• Two pieces of medium-heavy weight linen, about 18” W X 21” Tall
• French seams on three sides to prevent fraying and make bag durable for multiple washes.
• Finish off the top (narrow) edge with bias strips made of 2” bias-cut light weight cotton. Press the strip first, then sew one edge to the top of the linen bag. Turn over and stitch again from the outside at seam, being sure to catch the underneath edge. Makes a very clean, pretty finish.
• Stitch another bias strip (1” wide, created from the same 2” stip) to the front and back of the bag. First sew the ends under because they will get a lot of pull from your string. Then zig-zag stitch at top and bottom.
• Make draw strings (two, coming from either side) of 3′ length of cotton yarn, ribbon, other. Tie each of the ends together.