Up-cycle An Old Polo Shirt Into a Stylish New Bag

The other day I was going through mine and The Hubby’s “clothes to donate” pile and I found this polo shirt of his. I love the navy and white stripes so an idea to turn it into a bag similar to one I recently saw on Pinterest instantly popped into my mind.

Fast forward to a couple of hours later and I’m pretty happy with the way it turned out

Step 1: I sort of “eye-balled” everything based on the size of the shirt I started with and how big I wanted the finished bag to be. So I started with a folded in half piece of tissue paper and I drew out half of the bag with the strap bases and all. Then, with the paper still folded in half, I cut the design out. FYI…by folding your design in half and cutting it that way, you will ensure your finished piece is the same size on both sides.

Step 2: Place your pattern on your shirt wherever fits best for the pattern you want, but also leaving enough material to cut for the bottom and sides.

Step 3: Cut out your bottom and sides. I didn’t have enough space to cut one long piece for this so I had to cut 3 separate pieces. Note: I was not at all concerned about matching the strips from piece to piece in either direction. In fact, I think it kind of looks cool to have them mismatched.

Step 4: Because the material of the shirt was not that heavy, I wanted to add some strength to the bag so I cut out identical pieces to the pattern I just cut from the shirt with some canvas material I had left over from another project. The only difference, I made the bottom and sides one long piece because I did have enough room with this material.

Step 5: Sew the bottom and sides to your bag base. And sew the canvas bottom, sides and base as well.

Step 6: Turn the t-shirt material inside out and the canvas material right side in and pin and sew them together leaving the straps and one side un-sewn. I also sewed in a piece of elastic at the top of both side panels to give the bag a bit of a gathered look at the sides. Pull the right side of bag through your un-sewn opening. Then hand stitch the opening closed.

Step 7: I used a belt and some hardware from a falling apart bag to connect my straps. Since I used one strap instead of two, it was a bit challenging to make it look clean, so I’d recommend going with two traps if you’re going to try this.

And that’s it. The Hubby’s donated shirt became my new summer bag. Cute huh?

So go on and dig through your closets to find something amazing to make a new bag out of. They’re super fun!

Thanks for stopping by!

Print this