Old shirt = New peg bag (or how to make a peg bag from an old shirt whilst your wife appoints herself as the Health and Safety officer over the project!)

We haven’t bought a peg bag in years. Probably neither have you, but is the reason because you make them out of old shirts? No? Well read on and save yourself a fiver every ten years!

6-7pm can be a challenge in our house as we’re shattered after work and the kids are tired but won’t admit it. I wanted to carry on with the blog and so chose to use this time today for a quick project. Not the wisest move ever and took a bit of cajoling. However, this project is pretty quick and it doesn’t really matter whether the sewing is a right bodge as long as it holds together at the end, so it went pretty well.

Here’s how we did it:

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Take a shirt (preferably clean). Cut the arms off just past the shoulder seam, and chop the length off wherever you see fit. Remember it will end up an inch or so shorter than you’ve cut it.

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The kids loved this bit and couldn’t believe they were allowed to wreck one of my shirts. At this point, my wife saw the scissors and appointed herself as Health and Safety Officer; remaining very committed to this role throughout the project.

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I’ll take you through my version of how to sew in case there are are any dads reading this who don’t know where to start. For all those who can sew, just turn the shirt inside out, sew all the way around and then turn it back (and that’s pretty much it!)

Turn the shirt inside out and then get ready to sew.

Sewing, for those who don’t know and aren’t bothered about it looking neat:

Get some cotton and thread your needle. Its worth getting quick at this, as if you’re like me, you’ll end up doing it a 100 times when making something. Below is an easy way:

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I tried to show my son and daughter how to do this. It turned out my mum had already shown him, so he wasn’t very impressed, but my daughter got it too after a while (“this is so tricky daddy”).

After you’ve got your needle threaded, you just need to work around the edge of the shirt, about an inch in, sewing it in what I think is called a ‘running stitch’ (I might be wrong).

This is pretty straightforward and just involves holding the material together in one hand, putting the needle and cotton through so it goes from the top to underneath and pulling it though underneath until its tight (but not too tight). You then put the needle through from underneath slightly further up on the cloth and pull it through to the top again. Repeat until you finish.

Some things to remember – whenever you start a new piece, either tie a knot in the end of the cotton, or just go over the same bit a few times so the cotton doesn’t pull out the whole thing each time and you have to start again. Whenever you finish, the same thing applies (go over the same bit a few times and then loop under it) just to keep it from fraying.

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My daughter got bored, I think she’s maybe too young for this, but actually my son took some pride in doing the bottom part once he’d realised he was actually interested in helping us.

That’s pretty much it, except to then flip it so its not inside out anymore, put a coat hanger in it and then fill it with pegs! Its not a work of art but its functional and the kids were keen to see it come together. They plan to give it to someone as a present – bet that person will be glad!

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Here’s one we’ve had for years (if you needed convincing!)