I should've named this week "Baby Week"!! - Weg Bag Tutorial by Arwen

New Momma, and real life/blog friend Arwen (check out her blog HERE) has been making these adorable wet bags lately for baby gifts - and since baby gifts have been on my mind I thought I'd have her do a guest tutorial for us.  So without further ado, here's Arwen!

If you're like me, you know about a gazillion people who are pregnant, or who just had a baby. Having had a baby 11 months ago, I was getting a little bored with the traditional baby gifts. Inspired by using cloth diapers and some cute wetbags I saw for sale, I decided to try and make some to give as gifts.

Here is what you will need for this project: -1/2 yard of printed fabric -1/2 yard of PUL fabric -1, 14" zipper in the color of you choice -1 spool of matching thread -a walking foot for your sewing machine.

Let's get started!

First, you will need to cut your printed fabric so it is 34" long by 16 1/2" wide. Then, cut the PUL fabric so it is 36" long by 17"wide. Once you have done that, put the 2 pieces of fabric together. You want the wrong side of the printed fabric to be touching the non-shiny side of the PUL fabric. It should look something like this:

Pick one side at the top, fold down the 2 layers of fabric to form a nice crease, and line your zipper up so that there is approximately 1/2" of printed fabric showing on either side. Pin one side of your zipper to this and sew straight across. I find it easier to first pin my seam, and then go through and add the zipper to the pinned seam.

 

 

Once you have sewed the first side, unzip the zipper, and repeat the same steps with the other side. After the zipper is sewed on, set the bag aside, it is time to work on the handle! For the handle, you can make it however big or small you would like. I chose these dimensions because of the print that I wanted to show, but I normally prefer to have a much smaller handle on the bag. I cut, from the printed fabric, a strip that was 19" long by 4.5" wide. Fold in half so the right sides are facing in. Pin along the outer edge and sew. Just sew the seam, do not sew the ends shut.

 

Once it is sewn, turn the handle right-side out. Now, take your bag and turn it inside out, so the printed fabric sides are touching, and the shiny PUL fabric is on the outside. Pull back one side of the bag, and lay the handle down so the handle is facing towards the other side of the bag and pin in place:

 

This may get confusing, so bear with me, I'm not an expert sewer, so I apologize. You want to sew the handle into the bag, but only sew down to the end of the handle and then stop. PUL fabric is stretchy, and when you sew the PUL fabric with the shiny sides out, it tends to bunch. This is not a problem, except if you try to sew the PUL fabric, with the printed fabric together to finish the seams and the bag, your material will also bunch. Since the PUL fabric is going to be on the inside, we need to close the printed fabric and PUL seams individually. This way, the printed fabric will not bunch, and when the PUL does, no one will be able to see it. If you're still with me, here's how I did it. Pull back your PUL fabric, to expose only the printed fabric. Do you see the red thread on the PUL where I sewed the handle? Match up that seam with where you will start and sew the printed fabric only.

 

Then go ahead and sew the PUL fabric on that side. Go to the other side and repeat. It should look something like this:

 

and here is an example of the bunching that will always happen, but no one looks inside because that's where the dirty diapers go :)

 

Turn the bag inside out, or right side out, et voila! You have just made a wetbag!!