swimming in brine: snack baggie tutorial.

are you still motivated to be green? no? then make yourself a snack baggie and you will want to be the greenest kid in your neighborhood!! this here is a tutorial to make as many snack baggies as your heart desires. these are fabric snack baggies, perfect for all dry snack-ums....pretzels, cheerios, jelly beans, etc. these baggies are not for storing snacks, because they have no ability to maintain freshness over extended lengths of time; however, they are perfect-O for packing yummy delights into lunches.

for those of you thinking that you could make these with a plastic lining, be warned...food-grade plastic is not readily available in fabric stores, so unless you want your snacks rubbing up against weird chemicals, stay away from random sewable plastic. you can certainly use food-ready plastic (large chip bags are a great option), but that is a tutorial in and of itself, so for this go-round i decided to keep things simple and stick to cotton fabric for both the outside and the lining.

now if you are like my mumsy you are thinking that this these baggies will be the perfect breeding ground for all sorts of bizarre bacteria. you might even try to refer me to dr. emory, as my mother did, to discover the number of pathogens that will inhabit my creations. no offense to all of you germ-a-phobes, but i think this is plain silly. you can make yourself lots of snack baggies and then wash them after EVERY use. personally i am planning to wash mine weekly. at the end of the week i will either drop the little guys into the laundry or wash them by hand and let them air-dry over the weekend. by the time monday morning rolls around the baggies will be dry. so if you're with me, then read-on!!

materials: two 12" squares of material (1 for the outside and 1 for the lining), a 6" piece of thin width elastic, and thread.

note: click on images to see them larger.

step 1. choose a light-weight cotton fabric. you can use the same fabric for both the outside and the lining or you can use different fabrics. i opted to use unbleached 100% cotton for the lining and a pretty 100% cotton fabric for the outside. these instructions will make a snack baggie that is about 7"x5". if you want to make your baggie a different size decide what size you want and then use the template [the template will be posted soon...i promise] to calculate the dimensions that you need to cut. the example calculations shown in the template are the calculations for the baggie i made.

step 2. cut out two 7.5" x 11.5" rectangles. one will act as the outside and one will be the lining. cut a 6" piece of elastic (i used 1/4" elastic). i will refer to the 7.5" sides as the "short sides" and the 11.5" side as the "long side."

step 3. find the center of one of the short sides and mark with a pin. with the right-side facing up, make a loop with the elastic and pin it in the center of the edge of the rectangles. place the lining fabric on top of the outside fabric, with right-sides together. (this step sounds confusing, but look at the picture - it should make sense).

step 4. sew down the short sides using a 1/4" seam allowance. as you cross the elastic, go back and forth a few times to reinforce the stitching.

step 5. pull the layers apart and reposition so that the seams you just sewed are lined up together. pin. sew the long sides, but make sure to leave a 1.5" gap on one side (this should be on the lining half of the bag). you will use this gap to turn the bag right-side out. you can see my gap on the bottom right corner of the third picture.

step 6. turn the bag right-side out through the gap/hole you left in one corner.

step 7. pin the gap. sew the gap closed. sew as close to the edge as possible.

step 8. tuck the lining inside the bag. press the top edge with your fingers and pin. then carefully stitch around the top edge. sew as close to the edge as possible.