Celebrate Independence (And go plastic-bag free)

Happy (early) Independence Day to all my fellow American readers!

Just in time for 4th of July, the Mother Nature Network invites us all to celebrate plastic bag independence on July 3rd. In celebration of this, I'm featuring cool non-plastic bag options.

Hand carry wrap

Of course, there's always my favorite furoshikis. I use a hand carry bag wrap for just about everything! It's especially good for groceries since you can hang the two separate handles on the metal hooks for plastic bags and it will keep its shape during loading.

The only thing the hand wrap isn't good with is books. I use the large object wrap with a smaller furoshiki than needed for "large objects" if I have a lot of books, or the two books wrap for some novelty fun.

Large object wrap and a summer read

One thing I've learned over the last few months about furoshiki: try to tie as much as you can in advance. For example, the hand carry wrap can be basically tied in advance, rolled tightly, and popped into your purse or bag. I use an old, stretched out hair tie to keep it together. The large object wrap can have its diagonal corners tied beforehand, or while you're standing in line. When you're ready to pack, slip the books into the loop, then quickly tie the third step and walk out happy.

Do you have no reusable bags, but some unused fabric? My favorite crafting blog, How About Orange, has a list of tote bag tutorials to help you upcycle your fabric into something pretty and useful.

Ever stuck without a laptop bag? Howcast has a way to turn a hoodie into a laptop bag in quite a clever way.

So, my darling readers, are you inspired to shun plastic bags for a day? If you are, leave your favorite "go green" tip in the comments, and one at random will win a furoshiki! It's upcycled (which means my grandmother dumped a lot of her old scarves on me) so I can't comment on the color. It's going to be a patriotic red and blue camouflage! The winner will be announced in two weeks.

Please, US residents only for the competition. Your comment must be posted by Friday, July 8th to be eligible.

Go forth and celebrate! 

Not Food: Furoshiki strike again!

It's Christmas, and this year I'm trying to avoid wrapping paper.

When I was growing up, we didn't wrap family gifts in paper. We'd either use paper bags, which were reused, or my mom made a lot of simple fabric bags with Christmas fabrics.

In the spirit of reusable Christmas wrappings, I used Christmas fabrics to wrap my gifts furoshiki-style.

I just took scrap fabric from my mom's copious fabric stash, cut it with pinking shears so the edges wouldn't unravel, and wrapped the gifts. I also included a little card with a link to furoshiki.com so the recipients would know how to reuse them. I tucked it inside all my wrapped gifts.

The box was the easiest thing to wrap. Myfuroshiki has a great tutorial about your standard gift wrap. The hardest one to wrap was the ceramic coffee cup I bought for a friend. I tried to use the One Bottle Wrap 5, but it turned out a little odd. I fluffed two ends, and tucked the other two underneath. It's just hard to wrap something conical.

I think the best part of wrapping with cloth is that it made its own bow!

Farmers' Markets I, in which Jane fails to find real produce

I've wanted to use local produce more frequently for a while, but it's hard to hit some of the local farmers' markets. The one which is closest to me is actually the most difficult to make for me, since it's early on a morning which requires me to leave the produce in the car for a few hours. Not a good thing, especially during the summer! However, I found a list of local farmer's markets and decided to give it a whirl.

My first attempt was the one which made me feel eco-virtuous. I took the bus to nearest Thursday market, armed with cash and a couple of furoshiki. I was...underwhelmed. This one claimed to be huge, but was nine-tenths craft fair and food vendors. There were four, count them, four produce sellers. I bought some gorgeous tomatoes and wax beans (never tried them, but I was told they're good so I'll give them a shot). Most of it was premade street-fair stuff.

What I learned:
1) Not all markets are created the same. Some are street fairs just pretending.
2) If I don't have a lot in my furoshiki, it has a tendency to open up unless it's in basic handbag form. So I did a watermelon wrap, but then tied the looping handle tighter so it wouldn't open and viola - instant carrying bag.

I'll try again later with another market and see how that goes.

The Furoshiki

I hate tote bags. They get in the way, they are never the right size, and they don't usually look all that good, either. I'm sure they have their uses, like when I need to haul heavy or sharp things, or dirty things, but for everyday work I really dislike them. Plus, they're a pain to fold up and bring.

So, I was quite happy to discover the Japanese furoshiki. It's the art of folding basically a large scarf into a multitude of shapes, wraps, and carryalls. It was originally designed to be used in Japanese baths, as a non-cold place to sit on and something to hold your clothes. But lately the Japanese government has rejuvenated it as a greener alternative to plastic bags. Furoshiki.com has expanded upon the idea and created well over 50 techniques which do everything from shirts to pillows to (yes) carryall sacks. There's also the blog MyFuroshiki which posts new designs on occasion.

Both sites also sell them, but I find that cheap synthetic scarves from your local thrift shop do just as well and come in lots of shapes and colors. I use one to carry my lunch bag to school and then remove the bag and retie to to carry my groceries. When it's dirty, throw it in the wash.

One recommendation - use a scarf you don't mind getting ruined. Sharp edges can cut threads and some things can poke holes in the fabric.

This also works nicely as a birthday gift wrap. I gave a friend a vase and wrapped it in a pretty scarf using furoshiki techniques. She got two gifts in one and was thrilled.

Thoughts? Ideas? Got a great wrap? It works wonders.