Thursday, February 21, 2013

DIY: Small Wetbags

This is an easy peasy craft, and, with coupons, is SUPER cheap compared to buying small wetbags for your diaper bag. You can use them for soiled diapers or clothes. You can even take them to the beach/pool and throw the wet bathing suit in it so you don't get your diaper bag wet (and it is a ton cuter than using grocery bags!). In total, I spent $20 for the material to make three wetbags and I bought myself a new rotary cutter (I already had thread so I didn't need to purchase that, but you can use any color bc no thread shows on the finished product anyways). The wetbags I was looking at were about $10 a piece and the prices can go up to about $20 depending on brands.

My wetbags are about 12x10-10.5in (width by height.. right? lol)

Supplies:
PUL fabric
Regular cotton fabric
Zipper
Thread, pins, scissors, the usual

I was lazy and bought the 3-pack of cute prints of PUL by babyville at Jo-ann's. I am fairly certain you can buy PUL cheaper by the yard or possibly online, but I was lazy and a few cents or dollars was worth the convenience of having pre-cut PUL. It is 21x24in.

Most basic cotton fabric for quilting or whatever comes b/w 42-45in in width so I got 1/2 yd of one fabric and then a fat quarter that is 18x22in so I had enough cotton fabric to make three bags since I had three pieces of PUL.

The babyville packaging says to iron the PUL on the non-shiny side of the PUL on the cotton setting with steam evenly before using.

Step one: Cut the PUL and the cotton to be 21in by the length of the entire zipper fabric (so not the size of the metal zipper part (which mine is a 12in zipper), but from end to end of the whole piece (it adds about an inch and a half to the total width, but I didn't measure. I just marked the end of the zipper piece and cut)
The white fabric in this tutorial is the PUL fabric and the zebra is the cotton
Step two: Place the cotton fabric on top of the PUL so it is touching the non-shiny side of the PUL. You want the right side of the fabric up and the shiny side of the PUL on the opposite side (so when we fold it in half, the shiny side is the inside of the bag and the cotton fabric is showing the pretty side)
Step three: Once you get it lined up pretty well, pin the zipper right side down (take note of the picture so you can see what I mean)
Notice how the top of the zipper is facing the right side of the cotton fabric. This is so the rough edges of the fabric don't show
Step four: Sew this side of the zipper on after pinning

Step five: Next, you are going to pull the cotton and PUL straight and pin down each side (this is so the fabrics don't shift when we fold it over. You don't HAVE to do this step, but it should make your life easier.
Step six: Fold the fabrics up so that the cotton is on the inside and the PUL shiny side is facing out. Pin the zipper the same way you pinned it the first time.
Step seven: Sew what you just pinned. Make sure you are only sewing one side of the zipper, cotton and PUL and not accidentally sewing all 6 layers together.

Unzip the zipper a bit to make things easier when we go to turn the bag right side out.

Step eight: Line up the top fabrics where the zipper is sewn on and pin down the edges. Try to pin VERY close to the edge bc you don't want holes in your bag (we are going to sew on the inside of the pins so that the pin holes won't be in the bag)

Step nine: Sew
Step ten: Trim the excess seams (not too close to the seam bc you don't want to cut the thread or get rips/holes) and turn the bag right-side out. You now have a cute wetbag!
If you get patterned PUL and cheap solid cotton fabric, you can see the pattern through and I think it is pretty cute!


2 comments:

  1. Awesome tutorial Jess! This makes me so confident to break out the sewing machine and tackle DIY mommy projects (when that time comes) instead of spending lots of extra money for convenience. Jill is lucky to have wonderfully crafty mama!

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  2. You are the craftiest person I know! So amazing!

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