Bag challenge

I have a quilt friend named Helen. She lives in Scotland. We have been to her house and stayed with her family, which makes her even more special to me. Helen is a member of the British Quilters List and this year they are having a bag challenge. Every month there will be a new pattern for the members and if you make that one and post a photo of it, you get the password which will get you the next's month's pattern. Here is a link to the blog about it.

http://bqlbagblog.blogspot.com/

As I am a fan of reusuable shopping bags, I think this is a wonderful idea. But..how to play too? I'm not British. I don't live in the U.K. However, I joined the group anyway, planning on lying low and "lurking," so no one would say with a gasp, "Who let that AMERICAN in here?" Sigh. My well laid plan was shot down, however, when Helen "outed" me with the group. They are all friendly and welcoming, of course! Here is a photo of the bag I've made for January.
A nice thing about this bag; see that purple pocket? The bag folds up to fit inside it's own wee pocket, rather like a Quillow. It can easily be tucked into my purse and when I need a shopping bag, there it is!

The only problem with the pattern is that it calls for a plastic grocery bag to be used as a template. I had a difficult time finding one in our house, since we've been using cloth bags for quite some time now. I finally spotted one hanging in a corner of the broomcloset, filled with the skinny plastic bags that our newspaper sometimes comes in--to keep the paper dry from the rain. (I don't know why Tom is saving those, as they are too narrow for any practical purpose other than for the newspaper) I was able to use that grocery bag as the pattern, but as I had to cut the bottom off, it is now useless for storing Tom's skinny plastic newspaper bags in. Ooh dear! Maybe I need to make another bag to put those in?