Mindy Carlson

This summer I was at a street fair and visited a booth selling sewn goods.   I like to see what else is out there and support my fellow crafters.  This particular woman was selling re-usable sandwich bags made out of cloth. I loved them and bought two.  One of the neat things about these are how easily they clean up.  We pop them into the sink as we wash the dishes and dry them over night on the towel bar.

As my faithful readers will know, I have been using a lot of these 5-inch charm packs for different projects. In each project I have some pieces left over.    Nice and perfectly usable 5-inch squares……. that don’t really match any other fabric I have around the house.  I have been keeping them out of sight in a drawer,  but every now and then I open the drawer and sigh over their fate to languish and collect dust.

And then as I was tucking E’s sandwich into one of these bags inspiration struck. Those orphaned 5-inch squares were the perfect size for snack bags! So, I examined the sandwich bags I had and started hunting down the other materials I needed.

The lining for these bags is a nylon fabric similar to the stuff used for windbreakers. I managed to find it along with copious amounts of Velcro and the experimentation began.   The stitching isn’t the neatest that I’ve ever done and I really hate lining bags with fabric this flimsy, but here is my most successful prototype.

I put the cookies in the photos for scale (oatmeal raisin and they were delicious), but you can see that three cookies would fit pretty easily.  Right now it is filled with small pretzels and is sitting in E’s lunch box.

Now that I have perfected the technique I’ll be making more, that is for sure.  Plus I can applique or embroider one of the sides to personalize it for the kids; which as H enters the “MINE” phase of his life could be important.  This is a great project that doesn’t take long at all.   If you can sew straight lines you can make this bag.