This recycling bag is so quick to make that you should tag it onto the end of another sewing project, like the ironing board cover

It'll be as chic and frivolous as the fabric you choose. More importantly, it's genuinely useful - it'll turn the unsightly avalanche of carrier bags under the sink into a fountain of loveliness, and hopefully encourage everyone in the house to recycle. Sure, it's a drop in the ocean in terms of the 10 billion or more carrier bags used in Britain every year, but you have to start somewhere. What could be more appropriate than a recycling bag made out of an old shirt or your leftover curtain fabric?

You will need

A piece of fabric, 65cm square
A metre of ribbon at least 1cm wide or macramé jute
30cm of 5mm elastic (use white with pale fabric, black with dark)
Tape measure and tailor's chalk or fabric marker pen
Fabric scissors
Dressmaker's pins, a safety pin and a needle; a sewing machine if you have one
Matching thread

Cut a piece of fabric 65cm square and zigzag around the raw edges, using a sewing machine.

Fold the fabric in half with right sides facing and pin the longest sides together, leaving the top and bottom open.

Measure 2.5cm in from the top and bottom and mark these positions on the side seam. Leaving the 2.5cm at the top and bottom unsewn, sew 1cm in from the edge along the length of your fabric to make a tube.

Iron the seam open. Then fold and iron back a 1cm seam allowance on the unsewn sections at the top and bottom (see above, centre).

Fold the whole top edge of the 'tube' under twice, using no more than 1cm fabric in the fold. Iron and sew down as close to the fold line as you can. When you get to the side seam, secure the seam allowance that you previously folded back and ironed with a line of stitching. Fold this whole section under, to the point where the side seam finishes, and sew all the way around to create a channel (see below).

Repeat the previous two steps to create a channel along the bottom edge of the bag.

Attach a safety pin to one end of the elastic and pull it through the channel at the bottom of the bag (pin the other end of the elastic near the entrance to the channel to make sure it doesn't follow, or you'll have to start again). Once you've pulled the safety pin all the way around the channel and out the other side, secure the two ends of elastic together with a few stitches. This creates the bottom of the bag where you will pull the carriers from.

Now attach the safety pin to the piece of ribbon or jute and pull this through the top channel. Tie the two ends in a knot and hang your new recycling bag on the back of your kitchen door - out of reach of playful paws.

More crafts by Danielle Proud

Excerpted from House Proud by Danielle Proud, priced £16.99, published by Bloomsbury.

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Recycling bag