Gusseted Cloth Sandwich Snack Bag Tutorial

I can't stand spending money on items that are destined for the landfill. Diapers, wipes, sanitary pads, paper towels and especially expensive Ziplocs no longer have place in our home. Not only have we saved hundreds of dollars a year by not purchasing these "throw-away" items, they are also really fun to make yourself!

These bags feature a gusset at the bottom, so they open nice and wide, and don't squish sandwiches! Gussets allow the bags to hold more stuff (or wider items) and collapse flat when they’re not in use.


I designed these snack bags this past spring for a trip to Mexico, and we have a drawer full of them! I use them daily for granola, sandwiches and even our car toys.  My son is starting school tomorrow (1st grade - eek!) and he wanted his own cool bags for his lunches. He picked out this "awesome" flame fabric from the scrap bin at our local fabric store, and he can't wait to have lunches in them! Last year, his friends all told him that they wished their moms would make them some cool lunch bags too (blush!), so this is your opportunity, Moms!!

Need:
Sewing Machine
Scissors
(2) 7"x 7" Cotton fabric of your choice
(2) 7"x 7" Ripstop Nylon fabric
1 each 1/2"x 5" Hook and Loop Velcro (I cut mine to 1/2", but you can leave yours whatever thickness you like)

Step 1. Cut out (2) pieces of 7"x 7" Cotton fabric, and (2) pieces of 7"x 7" Ripstop Nylon for the liner.

Step 2. Place right sides of the fabric together and stitch the two (right and left) sides together with a 1/4" seam allowance.

This will make a "tube" of fabric. Repeat with the ripstop liner fabric, so you have 2 separate "tube" pieces.

Step 3. Turn the liner fabric inside out, and slide it inside the cotton fabric "tube", so that right sides are together. Make sure to line up the seams on the sides. You can pin the fabrics together at this point if you like. (I rarely do, but that is just me)

Step 4. Choose which side will be the top of the bag, if your cloth has a top direction, and position this side in sewing machine. Sew through 2 layers of fabric - 1 cotton layer, 1 liner layer. Stitch *almost all the way around on one side. Leave a 3" hole un-stitched for later (Step 9). Make sure you don't accidentally stitch through all 4 layers.

Step 5. Pull the liner out, and lay flat, right sides of the fabric inside, aligning the side seams.

Step 6. Sew a straight line along the bottom (open) end of the liner fabric. Repeat with the other cotton fabric side.

Step 7.  Create a Gusset: On the bottom corner, pinch and slide the bottom corner of the fabric into a point, so that the seams align with each other on opposite sides. It helps to open up the bag a bit to give you some room to slide the fabric around. Pin, or iron this flat. (See the pic in Step 8 for clarification).

Step 8. Sew across this point in about 1" from the end. Note - you can make these as large or as small as you like, the larger (longer) you measure away from the point of the fabric, the wider the bag will be. Don't make it too wide (over 1 1/2") or the bag will be too small to fit a sandwich.

Repeat on the other side. Then do the exact same with the nylon side.

I like to trim the excess fabric triangle off, as it makes the bag less bulky. Be sure not to cut through the seam.

Step 9. Remember the hole we left open in Step 4? Turn the bag inside out through this hole.

If you forgot to leave a hole, gently use a seam-ripper and open up a hole.

Nice huh!

Step 10. Tuck the liner fabric down into the cotton fabric.

 Step 11. Topstitch around the opening of the bag to help it lay flat.

 Step 12. Line up the hook side of the velcro along the top, and stitch around. Repeat with the loop side. Finished!

To clean, just wipe clean with a damp cloth, or toss in a cool water washing machine and dry.

Congratulations!! Aren't you proud of yourself? By using fabric sandwich/snack bags, we can save thousands of plastic bags from becoming non-biodegradable trash filling up landfills and floating in our oceans!

Lime and Tangerine Spring

 

I remember standing on the beach, with only minutes left of my vacation, saturating myself in each brilliant blue and green shade of the ocean, the white gold of the beach, and the unbelievable azure sky, thinking to myself "absorb it all, Becca."

Our family just returned from a week in Akumal, Mexico, thanks to the unbelievable generosity of my hubby's parents. Spring here in Utah has been almost non-existent, weather going from rain, to sun to even snow two days ago.  So, I have been pining for the brilliance of that beach ever since. 

As an extremely visual person, the striking colors of the Yucatan make the dull grey spring here in Utah pale in comparison. I think these colors are trying to spill out of me this last week, as every new item I have been making is super bright, with green and orange felt scraps plastering my desk. 

So, hopefully Utah will catch up a bit and act like Spring/Summer this week and I will not have to express my color-longing in my felt play food as much.

The Big Ta-Da

You know the feeling when you work on something you are really proud of, are just itching to finish it and show it to the world, because it is the most spectacular, wonderful and brilliant idea you ever had - and its conception has been barraged through the gauntlet of design vs logistics for weeks... Know what I mean? That is my experience with my new items - BBQ Spare Ribs.

To my knowledge, I haven't seen any other felt food item quite like these (and this is after many many Google searches), which is why this idea has been bouncing around the idea room in my head - banging the door down before someone else snatches this one up. Because in the felt food world, there are only so many felt food items that can be made before you have "seen it all" - of course there are variations of a food item - color, design, etc... but most play food items have been done-to-death by everyone and their grandmother (me included), so when the opportunity to create a totally new item comes up, I snatch it! The funny thing is, it wasn't even totally mine - my husband is the creative genius who gets credit for this one. My favorite part of this new design is the magnets that can be added to the small piece so the ribs can be "pulled apart" like the real thing. My kids giggle, and I smile.

I am a vegetarian, so the idea of me creating drippy meat play food is laughable. So as I sit with my kids, playing with their new play food pieces (my kids get the first crack at the new designs) I pretend we are gnawing on delicious soy-protein and tofu "riblets" dipped in organic vegetarian rib sauce. Or a meat popsicle. One of the two.

New Designs

I am grinding my teeth today as I am working (wrestling, more like!) with a new design for a felt food item that has been sitting in a corner of my brain, poking me to let it out. I need to tell this little "brain design" that ideas and logistics don't always play well together. Oh well. I plug on and hope that I can nail this design down tonight, so it can have its big debut tomorrow. This one is a never-before-seen felt food item - at least I haven't found any like it in several searches, so it should be fun!!

Cloth Lunch Bag Tutorial

As many of you know, I lived in Hawaii for 2 years while going to school at BYU Hawaii, and there made some of the most amazing friends and memories I will ever have. I miss my island home almost constantly and still await the day when I can visit my island Ohana again. A few years ago, a best friend sent me 2 stacks of 4" hawaiian fabric blocks for a Hawaiian quilt I was planning. Well, that quilt still has not been made and I have hundreds of these little squares sitting in my fabric bin. I pulled them out yesterday and decided to make some cloth lunch bags for E's school lunch. I had so much fun, I thought I would share them with you.

These bags fit sandwiches & snacks perfectly, and are completely machine washable. No more wasted money on garbage ziplocs! Plus, how fun to have these in your bag lunch! This pattern is a spin off from a great book called Cut Loose Quilts by Jan Mullen - my FAVORITE quilting book ever!

Materials Needed: 
(8) 4x4" squares of Cotton fabric
(2) 8" squares of Nylon fabric
1/2"x 4" Strip of Hook & Loop Velcro
Sewing Machine
Ruler
Rotary Cutter/Scissors

Lets Begin!

Step 1. Choose your fabric squares - I used 4 fabrics with 2 squares of each print. STACK all fabrics together into 1 stack.

 Step 2. Place ruler over fabric at any angle and cut all layers of fabric at once.

Step 3. Move ruler to another random angle and cut again. This is what your stack should look like (your angles will obviously be a bit different).

Step 4. Now separate the 3 cuts and lay them out, mixing up the fabric pieces with other colors so you get fun random blocks. Since you cut them all at the same time, they will all intermix perfectly. (The pic shown here only shows half of my blocks). These 4 blocks will make 1 side of the bag.

 Step 5. This part is a bit tricky, but you can do it! Take middle piece (A) and fold it over on top of (B), making sure to line up the edges along the dotted line. It doesn't matter that the rest of the edges are not aligned. Sew along the matched edges marked with the dotted line.

Step 6. Next, do the same thing with the remaining piece - lining up the red-dotted side and sew together.

Your finished piece will look similar to this. The edges will be uneven, but we trim them into a square next.
Step 7. Square up the block by using the ruler to get an even square block.

 

Step 8.  Repeat steps 4-7 with the remaining 7 blocks.
Step 9. Sew 4 of the blocks together to make a square. This is the front of your bag. Repeat for the back of the bag.

 

Step 10. Next, take 1 piece of the Nylon. place it against the right side of the fabric & sew along 1 side. Flip right side out.

 Step 11. Place 1 strip (either hook or loop side) of Velcro on the nylon side (notice the seam at the top of the bag). This will be the inside top of the bag. Sew on, making sure the cotton & nylon stay lined up as much as possible. Repeat with other side. You will now have 2 halves of your bag.

Step 12. Line up the 2 pieces, with right sides together. Sew along the 2 sides & bottom - I reinforced the top sides near the velcro, as this is a high stress area. Turn right side out - you are done!!

Here are a few more bags to give you ideas of what you can do! I would love to see pics of your bags - have fun!