3 Local groups in the New Forest making beautiful reusable bags from waste fabric x

Groups are in Lymington, Ringwood and Hythe.

Plus there are a couple of local schools that are starting to join in and make bags too.

We have previously had stalls in open air fetes, where we take along a couple of old hand driven sewing machines so that people can choose a bag and sew on their own label with one of the old machines. Great little attraction for children and adults, raising awareness of the need to recycle, upcycle, use what we have, plus a bit of reskilling and sewing.

Over lockdown we were making drawstring bags for NHS workers, masks and other items. We now have a bit of focus making slightly larger than normal, flat bottomed bags for the Food Basics Bank, who were using and throwing away over 1000 plastic bags a week. Thankfully we are being helped by a number of other local groups to help achieve this.