Reusable shopping bags

I've thought for awhile now that I should start using reusable shopping bags. I feel so bad throwing the plastic ones away. I know you can take them back to the store, but I just never do it. I use paper bags when possible and recycle them, but it's still wasteful. I looked into making my own but it seemed so expensive. It was cheaper to buy the ugly ones from the grocery store. Until now.... I found a pattern online that had handles as part of the bag. Other patterns I'd seen you have to sew handles on, which is expensive if you use webbing and also doesn't seem to be as strong to me since you're sewing the handles on. For the fabric I bought a queen sheet for $4 at the thrift store. I was able to get 5 bags and pouches (see picture below) from it. So that's $0.80 per bag with pouch for you non-math people, cheaper than you can get an ugly grocery store bag for. Plus it has a pouch that the bag folds into for easy carrying, bonus!

I did encounter a slight problem, I really needed to use a serger for the handles. THANK YOU Kristina and Sis. Mellor for letting me use your serger!

Here's the first finished bag:

I also learned how to do a french seam and a flat-fold seam for this. Below is the flat-fold seam, bad quality, sorry. The flat-fold seam is just a french seam sewn down. I love the french seam because there are no raw edges inside the bag (there's no liner) and each seam is sewn twice, making it sturdier. It's more time consuming, but I love the finished product.

And here is the bag in its pouch. The pouch is sewn into the side of the bag making it really convenient.

Now hopefully they're sturdy enough for my groceries, and hopefully I remember to take them with me to the store. I'm going to try to keep one in my purse at all times.