Morsbags shortlisted for P.E.A. Award

That stands for People. Environment. Achievement. !

We are shortlisted in the ‘Green Pioneer‘ category and the awards are dished out on the 13th October so please wish us luck!

You can view all the shortlists for 2017 here at the P.E.A. Awards Website (opens in a new window)

 

Morsbags at the Great British Sewing Bee Live

It’s the sewing event of the year! And we will be there…

Please visit morsbags at the Great British Sewing Live at London’s Excel exhibition centre from the 21st September until the 24th.

We desperately need volunteers to help man our stall with us. If you are able to come and spend a day with us and get a free pass to the show, then please can you fill out this form.

We also need as many bags as you can make! We are supplying 1500 morsbags for VIPs of the show. You can show your commitment by going to your pod page and filling in the ‘challenge bags pledged‘ tally. This helps us calculate who is able to help us make these much need bags. We are getting an amazing stand in return for the bags, courtesy of the GBSB live and Upper Street events. It will be a great exposure for morsbags and the bags are needed to help us spread the word to all the VIPs and press at the event. We will need you to sew on labels but we will replenish any labels free of charge, and we will organise a courier to pick the bags up from you at our cost.

Please let us know if you can help.

All enquiries: admin@morsbags.com

Wir in Arnsberg is Pod of the Month!

Congratulations Wir in Arnsberg Pod for being ‘Pod of the Fortnight’ – you’ve made 1400 morsbags to date, so we asked you these questions:

1) Who is in your pod?
We are about three women, who regularly meet to sew morsbags.  We meet in a kind of ‘drop in centre’, where people can come to with their sewing problems so there is a varying number of  sewers who attend. On average we are about 5 – 8 morsbaggers who meet.

 

2) When/where do you sew morsbags?
As mentioned above, we meet at a kind of open place once a week. Sometimes twice a week with a special morsbags workshop. It´s based at the local train station.

 

3) Where did you first hear about morsbags?
I heard about morsbags from my friend Angela who has been sewing morsbags for some years.

 

4) Did you think about your use of plastic bags before?
Yes. We’ve been interested in saving the environment and helping nature for a long time 🙂 We’ve always been interested in great projects like Clean Ocean etc.  – it was just a question of time getting in touch with the idea of morsbags.

 

5) What type of sewing machine/s do you use?
We use sewing machines of several different brands.

 

 6) What was the most unusual or satisfying thing you’ve made a morsbag out of?
We love to make morsbags out of men’s shirts.

 

7) Who was your first bagging victim?
Of course the family was completely equipped with morsbags 🙂 followed by neighbours and friends. Besides this, morsbags are given to the owners of shops in our town and they give them to their customers. Our “marketing-organisation” of the shops pays the morsbags-labels. In every morsbag the customers find the explanation of the idea of the morsbags.

 

8) What’s been your finest morsbag moment?
It’s always a pleasure to look into surprised faces of strangers or our customers, giving them morsbags free at the supermarket´s cash desks or in our shops.

 

9) Who would you like to guerilla bag most? (dead or alive)
Those people who produce plastic bags, to give them an idea of what else to do with the lots of money spending for producing those unfriendly bags!
1) Wer ist in eurem Pod?
 Die Initiative des Morsbag-Nähens wurde von unserer Werbegemeinschaft “Wir in Arnsberg” ins Leben gerufen. Wir sind 3 Frauen, die sich regelmäßig treffen, um Morsbags zu nähen. Wir nähen in einer öffentlichen “Nähstube”, in die Menschen kommen können, um sich bei ihren Nähproblemen helfen zu lassen. Im Durch-schnitt sind wir 5 – 8 Personen.

 

2) Wann/wo näht ihr Morsbags?
 Wie oben erwähnt, treffen wir uns einmal wöchentlich in einer Nähstube im städtischen Bürgerzentrum am hiesigen Bahnhof. Manchmal zweimal wöchentlich mit einem speziellen Morsbag-Workshop.

 

3) Wo hast du zum ersten Mal von Morsbags gehört?
Ich habe Morsbags durch meine Freundin Angela kennengelernt, die seit Jahren diese Taschen näht und verschenkt.

 

4) Hast du schon früher über deine Verwendung von Plastiktaschen nachgedacht?
Ja. Wir sind schon seit langer Zeit daran interessiert, der Umwelt zu helfen. Das Projekt “Säubert den Ozean” fanden wir z. B. toll, so dass es nur eine Frage der Zeit war, dass wir mit der Idee der Morsbags in Berührung kamen.

 

5) Welche Art von Nähmaschinen benutzt ihr?
Wir nutzen Nähmaschinen von verschiedenen Marken.

 

6) Was war das ungewöhnlichste oder beste Material, aus dem ihr eine Morsbag genäht habt?
 Wir lieben es, aus alten Herrenhemden Morsbags zu nähen.

 

7) Wer war dein erstes Taschen-Opfer?
Natürlich meine Familie, die komplett mit Morsbags ausgestattet wurde, gefolgt von Nachbarn und Freunden. Außerdem verteilen wir die Morsbags an Händler in unserer Stadt, die Taschen an ihre Kunden verschenken. Unsere Werbegemeinschaft “Wir in Arnsberg” bezahlt die Morsbag-Etiketten. In jeder Tasche finden die Kunden eine Beschreibung der Morsbag-Idee.

 

8) Was war dein schönster Morsbag Moment?
Es ist immer eine große Freude, in die überraschten Gesichter von Fremden an der Supermarkt-Kasse oder von Kunden bei uns in den Geschäften zu schauen, wenn man ihnen eine Morsbag schenkt.

 

9) Wem würdest du am liebsten eine Guerilla-Tasche geben?
Den Menschen, die Plastiktaschen produzieren, damit sie eine Idee bekommen, was man sonst mit der Menge an Geld machen könnte, die für das Produzieren dieser umweltschädigenden Taschen ausgegeben wird.

Cuckoobird is the Pod of the Fortnight!

Congratulations Cuckoobird for being ‘Pod of the Fortnight’ – you’ve made a whopping 7782 morsbags to date, so we asked you these questions:

1) Who is in your pod?

Him’n’me

2) When/where do you sew morsbags?

We usually sew at the dining room table. Normally the two sewing machines are set up and ready to use, with uncut fabric in cupboards and kits in a washing basket by the door. If there’s a handout coming up we aim to make at least 3 morsbags each per day. When the sewing machines are put away (if visitors come for a meal) it seems like a barrier to sewing & takes a little while to get them out and get going again.

3) Where did you first hear about morsbags?

A friend read an article about Pol and morsbags in the Western Morning News in about May / June 2007 and as a result set up Aggie Baggies pod. Aggie Baggies made lots of bags over the next year to eighteen months, but the other members gradually lost interest or had to do other things and I was left, still bagging, on my own. So I started Cuckoobird pod and was a solopodder for a while.

Then Offcuts persuaded me to do the Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace (October 2009), but fell downstairs and broke both shoulders, so couldn’t go & it would have been just me and several sewing machines, with no breaks, for 3 or 4 days of a really popular show. So my stalwart husband said “You’d better show me how to make morsbags, then”. I did, and then he showed HUNDREDS of people how to make their own bags at Ally Pally.

4) Did you think about your use of plastic bags before?

I did, but to a limited extent. I remember the first time I shopped at Lidl I was amazed and appalled that there were no free bags, and you had to either buy a (pretty good, durable) plastic bag, search the shop for a discarded cardboard box, or pile your shopping back into the trolley, wheel it to your car and load it loose into the boot.Next time we went there we took bags – it wasn’t hard, was it?!

5) What type of sewing machine/s do you use?

Usually we use two Brother machines – they’re great workhorses and simple to use. I took my original one to the sewing machine centre to be overhauled after I’d had it a few years & the engineer asked if I sewed professionally! I guess it showed signs of wear. My OH is a “born engineer” and can mend almost any machinery and get it to work. He overhauls the machines from time to time.

We also have a collection of hand crank sewing machines, I’ve never paid more than £10 for one and some were given to us. I think we have eight hand cranks plus a large treadle machine that lives in the hall. Handcranks are great for sewing outdoors, or where there is no electric supply (think fetes and shows in fields) and for children to help make a bag as they’re nice and slow and controllable.

6) Please give 3 adjectives to describe your first morsbag.

HE says his first one was “Blue, Skopos, lop-sided“, I’ve forgotten mine…

7) What was the most unusual or satisfying thing you’ve made a morsbag out of?

Lots of pieces that someone else had cut out to make a patchwork project and then abandoned. There were some great “car” motifs.

8) Who was your first bagging victim?

Lost in the mists of time……

9) What’s been your finest morsbag moment?

I really enjoyed all the shows we did where we get to help Mr & Mrs Public make their own bags. Of those, I guess I enjoyed Clarence House (UK Aware 2010) and Kew Gardens (UK Aware 2011) most. All those people, keen to get their hands on some royal curtain fabric to make their bags, and the camaraderie with the other morsbaggers helping too. Such fun!!

10) Who would you like to guerilla bag most? (dead or alive)

I would like to bag the Swedish engineer Sten Gustaf Thulin. According to Wikipedia – (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_shopping_bag) “In the early 1960s, Thulin developed a method of forming a simple one-piece bag by folding, welding and die-cutting a flat tube of plastic for the packaging company Celloplast of Norrköping, Sweden. Thulin’s design produced a simple, strong bag with a high load-carrying capacity, and was patented worldwide by Celloplast in 1965.”

So I’d take him a morsbag (maybe in light blue and yellow, Sweden’s national flag’s colours) and say, “Sten Gustav, sweetie, I know you haven’t really thought about all this, and the possible repercussions from the way you’re heading right now….” and distract him! MAYBE it would work 😀

Christmas Competition 2013

Are you feeling Christmas crackered or excited about Xmas? Make a Christmas themed morsbag and post a picture here on the forum to be in with a chance of winning a fabulous morsbag ‘kit’ including fabric donated by HRH Prince Charles from the Royal Palaces – wouldn’t that be a quirky and totally original gift* for someone?

Please post photos of your Christmassy creations by 9am on the 19th of December. Even if you don’t win (or even if you do!), your Christmas morsbag can be given away as a lovely gift or as wrapping this Christmas, so enjoy the festive planning and sewing… Good luck!

*prize will be posted in time for Christmas as long as winner’s address is given on the 19th.

Here are some past fabulous festive examples to whet your appetite by Christie, Ivybags and Sazzie… Good luck!

 

Handout!

We haven’t had a coordinated handout for a while – and it’s TIME!

We’ve chosen Saturday 25th of January and thought it’d be a great way to give everyone a boost in the New Year!

The idea is to sew like mad to make as many lovely morsbags to hand out as possible – perhaps organise a local group for courage, support and joy, and hand out free morsbags to locals wherever you are in the world……

You can:

…bag shops or supermarkets

…bag a park full of walkers

…bag a whole street by posting through letterboxes

…bag a cinema queue

…bag a train carriage

…bag the contents of your address book

…bag a local event e.g jumble sale, bingo….

The possibilities are endless and it’s up to YOU, wherever YOU are!

If you fancy joining in, give us, and your local radio/newspaper, a shout. Email, or write here to say that you’re IN and see what people in other areas are doing…

‘Rocbags’ pod (Robert Owen Communities –ROC- which is a charity giving opportunities to adults with learning disabilities) handing out morsbags on a previous handout in Cornwall.

‘I bag you’ pod ready with beautifully packaged morsbags for a previous handout in Germany.

A horse being bagged by ‘Offcuts’ pod on a previous handout in Leicestershire.