Saturday, April 9, 2011

Quick and dirty wetbag revisited

I posted previously about a "quick and dirty" wetbag that I sewed using sandwich PUL from the Swaddlebees clearance section. After sewing that bag, I had about half of that end cut left -- plenty to sew up one more! And you can never have too many wetbags... I use them not just for cloth diapers but also for storing pump parts in my pump bag, for bringing wet swimsuits home from the pool, etc. They are super handy!

This time around, I took pictures as I sewed up the bag.

I started by cutting a rectangle of PUL. I think mine was about 12" by 25", but it doesn't really matter -- you can make any size you want/need.

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I put the zipper down with the teeth facing up. I put one short end of the fabric on the zipper, right side down, lining up the top edge of the fabric with the top edge of the zipper tape.

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I sewed a seam down the length of the zipper tape, then flipped the fabric over along that seam:

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I topstitched down the length of the zipper tape.

Then I folded the fabric right side to right side and lined up the other short end of the fabric with the top of the other side of the zipper tape:

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Again, I sewed a seam down the length of the zipper tape. Then I flipped the fabric right side out:

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And topstitched down the length of the seam again.

Now, with my last bag, I flipped the bag inside out, sewed a seam down each side, and called it a day. But this left raw edges and the zipper tails visible inside the bag -- not the end of the world, but not the prettiest design, either. So this time around, I took a slightly different approach.

I left the bag right side out and pinned down the two side seams. I made sure to unzip the zipper most of the way before doing this. Otherwise I would have sewed my zipper on the outside of the bag :)

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I trimmed down the seam allowances to about 1/8", ncluding trimming the zipper tape on both sides so that I no longer had those long tails:

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Then I flipped the bag inside out (through that partially unzipped zipper) and sewed down both edges with a 3/8" seam allowance. Done!

Here is a shot of the inside of the bag before turning it right side out. No expose seams... yay!

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View of the outside:

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The raw edge of the zipper tape is neatly sewed into the seam on this side:

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But it's visible on this side :( Not sure what else I could to do hide it... it's not too bad anyway:

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Easiest wetbag ever! I think it may have taken longer to write this post than to sew this wetbag :)

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