Jochet Works

For anyone in the United States who has been to Aldi’s, you know that you need to bring your own bag. If you don’t live in the US, or have never been to Aldi’s, then here’s your warning. You need to bring your own bag.

Now, I generally make sure to have my own reusable bag in my car no matter what. You never know when you’re going to need it.

Well, one day I went to Aldi with my boyfriend, and we took his car. He does not have reusable bags in his car. This was obviously a problem when we finished ringing out and realized that we now had a cart full of groceries that was going to need to be carried in without bags or boxes. Later that day, I made my prototype market bag.

It looked nice and seemed to be the perfect market bag… That is, until we tried to put heavier items in it. It stretched so much more than I had intended. We didn’t even use the handles because whatever was in the bag would potentially drag the ground (well, it did when I carried it; my boyfriend is slightly taller, so he had about 5 inches of clearance).

So, with that in mind, I decided I needed to make the bag a little sturdier. I liked the look of the original bag, but I wanted something that still used basic worsted weight yarn (I didn’t want to go out and buy hemp cord or something heavier duty). So, I decided to do the same pattern double-stranded and decrease the number of rows in the mesh.

The result turned out practically perfect. The stretch was still there for when you need just a little more space, but the sides were sturdy enough that it still held.

My boyfriend now has two market bags that ride around in the trunk of his car, and he uses them quite frequently. More often than I use my reusable ones, actually. He also loves the color of the second bag.

Any questions, comments, or concerns? Let me know!

Thanks for reading. – Jo