Thursday 24 April 2014

A Much Better Changing Bag

Changing bags are expensive!  Even the plain ones seem to cost a small fortune, as well as being a bit boring.  A friend who recently came to this conclusion asked if I could make one for her.  Suddenly the changing bag world expanded!  Naturally I spent some (read "a lot of") time on Pinterest and found one that met the criteria, which were a) that my friend liked it, and b) it was within my capability!  This tutorial by the Crafty Couple was clear and easy to follow, as well as being patternless - which is ideal as I don't have a printer and could just cut the fabric straight to size.

There were a couple of websites that we looked at for oilcloth fabric (so that the bag was waterproof inside and out).  These were Only Oilcloths and Norfolk Textiles, although I'm sure there are many others.  The fabrics we went for were Stampede Pastel Gloss and Lisbon Denim Matt from Only Oilcloths.  We opted for 135cm x 100cm of each, to ensure we had enough (and the cost was the same for this size or smaller).  The total cost of the bag was just under £30, which is pretty reasonable for a one-of-a-kind totally practical bag of this kind.

Before cutting out I worked out which pieces I wanted in the patterned fabric and which pieces were going to be plain.  


I had enough fabric to make a changing mat to fit neatly in the back pocket.  I did this by cutting two oilcloth rectangles 30cm x 60cm and one 30cm x 60cm in a lightweight wadding.  I arranged the pieces as follows: wadding, piece 1 right side up, piece 2 right side down (ie right sides together).  I pinned and sewed around three edges (starting with a long edge).  I then turned the piece right sides out, folded in the remaining seam and top stitched around the whole rectangle to close up the open edge and neaten it up.  Folded in three the mat fits just right!



I had a few left over scraps of the fabric so a few days later I made a waterproof zipper pouch, which I'll tell you about properly soon!

2 comments:

  1. Oh Clara, this is beautiful! xx

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  2. Thanks Hannah! Wish I had time to do more stuff like this.

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