Vintage placemat --> Clothespin bag

Kellie is a crafty momma who blogs regularly at Greenhab and the Green Phone Booth.

I love picking up kitchy vintage linens, napkins and place mats whenever I see them at second hand stores. I have a big collection of them in my sewing stash just waiting for the right projects. Now that the weather is finally starting to get nice again, I've begun line drying our clothes out on the porch. For the past two years, I've gotten by with a plastic bag for my clothes pins, but this week I found some time to turn a cute sunshine yellow place mat into a clothes pin bag.

For this project, all you'll need is an old place mat and some velcro. You can make the bag any size you'd like, so there's really no need for precise measurements. If you were making one as a gift, you might want to line the bag. In my house, I'm Laundry Queen and am guaranteed to be the only one who will ever see this, so I left it unlined.

First, cut a few inches off one end of the place mat. Turn the larger side (which will be the bag) inside out and square off the corners to create a boxed bottom.

Turn the bag right side out. Fold the top in twice, iron, and stitch. Set this piece aside.

With the small scrap piece, fold the ends in, iron, and top stitch all around. This piece will be the strap for the bag.

Before attaching the strap to the bag, you'll want to attach the velcro pieces. One will go on the end of the strap. The other goes on the back of the bag (outside, top) as seen below.

Now we'll attach the strap to the back side (inside) of the bag like this...

Make sure you attach it so that the velcro pieces will match up when you fold the strap over.

Now that I'm looking at it, you could probably leave the strap off altogether and just use clothes pins to hold it up. I like it this way though, because you can sort of slide it down the clothes line as you go.

Enjoy!