Reusable tea and herb bags

 

I made a batch of muslin tea bags for a few people for Christmas.  As I’m growing more herbs, I need to make more tea!  So I figured I could fill a couple bags with my own hyssop tea from the garden and through in some extra tea bags for a sweet, green gift.

A ½ yard of 44 inch wide unbleached, preshrunk muslin made 24 tea bags.  I also bought 10 yards of cotton string that is used in making some type of fancy curtain (available at fabric stores).  But you could use any natural fiber string.

I cut my muslin into rectangle pieces measuring 6 x 4 inches, and I cut my string in to 12-15 inch pieces.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Press in half and trim edges with picking shears to prevent fraying.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Press the 2 short sides in about a ¼ inch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Press one long side in about ½ inch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Place your cotton string inside the hem line and sew across the top, creating a pocket for the pull string.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fold the rectangle in half again, with seams facing out.  Stitch along the side and bottom to form a bag.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clip your corners, clean off any hairs or stray threads, and turn right-side out. Tie the cotton string together and make yourself a cup of tea!

 

 

After finishing these, I bought another half yard and made 6 larger bags for storing/drying herbs and spices (I followed the directions above, but used 9 x 14 inch rectangles and 18 inch pieces of string).  You can make the bags as big or small as you want.  Larger bags also work for compost tea!

When doing small, repetitive projects like this it often works best to do it assembly line style.  I cut everything out, then do all the ironing, sew each bag, clean them up and package.  It goes much quicker!