Pretty Much Pintesting - Sewing An XXL Wet Bag

Newborns need a diaper change every 2 hours. Changing a cloth diaper every 2 hours means you're going to end your day with a lot of diapers that need someplace to go. I've had enough issue getting a full days worth of my little lambs diapers fitting into the wet bag I have so I knew I needed something larger.

With the full intention of using this bag for my daughter until my son got here (because having only one wet bag for cloth diapers really wasn't cutting it) I needed to get to work.

Today's post is based on this pin and the information found here. I pretty much followed the same pattern and made a couple of adjustments to make this suit my needs.

I like wetbags because you can use them for more than just cloth diapering.  Take them to the pool for wet clothing and towels.  Maybe you have a little one who is potty training.  This would be a handy thing to have in the diaper bag for any accidents.  Much cuter than a plastic grocery bag, don’t you think?  This wetbag ends up being 9” x 12” and will fit about 3 large cloth diapers, but you can certainly adjust the sizes to make a larger bag.

To start, you’ll need the following materials:

*Two pieces 10” x 12.5” cotton fabric

*One 4” x 14” strip of cotton fabric

*Two pieces 10” x 12” PUL (polyurethane laminated fabric)

*9” zipper

*matching thread

*I read that polyester thread prevents wicking (leaking of moisture in the bag), so I usually use that if I have it.

*baby powder or tissue paper

With shiny side of the PUL up, lay your zipper on top of a short side. 

Place on of the cotton pieces of fabric on top of that, ride side of the fabric touching the zipper.

Pin together.

 Using your zipper foot, sew along the side of the zipper, as close to the zipper as you can.  

Turn both layers over and make the cotton and the PUL even along the sides and bottom.  

Topstitch closely to the zipper.

Before you, Repeat above steps for the other side of the zipper using the remaining outer and PUL pieces of fabric. I stopped to make the straps. Because my bag was so much bigger I was  going to need 2 straps to properly distribute the weight of the bag.

Set the bag aside for now.

Let’s make the straps.

 Fold the 5” x 14” strip in half

 and sew 1/4” seam along the long side.

 Then I sewed along the top of one of the edges.

Turn right side out and topstitch along both long sides.

Your bag no longer needs to set off to the side

Pin the straps in your sandwich of, PUL/ zipper/ straps/ cotton fabric. Make sure the straps are inside the bag. To make certain I caught the straps I left a little extra of the strap peeking out of the wrong side where I would be sewing.

Take the two outer cotton layers and line up as evenly as you can, right sides together.  So your PUL is pulled up and out of the way.  Sew 1/4” seam down each side, making sure to catch the zipper at the top and also the handle that you pinned in.   

 Leave the bottom open.  

Now take the two PUL layers and also line them up as evenly as possible, shiny sides together.

Leave the bag how it is in the above picture.

So the zipper is on the inside, and the cotton layers are still showing the wrong side.  The PUL and the cotton layers are NOT connected at all besides at the zipper.  Sew along all  3 sides of the PUL, leaving the zipper side open.  Since you are sewing on the non-shiny sides, your machine should work fine on this part without tissue paper or baby powder.  

Turn the bag right side out by pulling the cotton layer down over the PUL layer tuck the bottom of the cotton layers and iron. Topstitch closed. I actually didn't bother to stitch the PUL to the cotton. I left it loose.

Right when I was about to sew the end of my bag shut I noticed there was a cut in the fabric.

I fixed it by placing a scrap of the same fabric inside the bag. Making sure that I only had those two layers of fabric before I began sewing.

And then zig zag stitched over the problem.

Now to add snaps to those handles.

100% new to using a press and applying Kam Snaps and 100% disinterested in wasting time or money I went to YouTube to find an instructional video. This is the one I chose to use and it was everything I needed to know about properly using my new crafting toy.

I was careful to do my best to line the snaps up so they should be placed in the same spot on each strap.

Once you have the snaps on go hang the bag from wherever you're going to need it for now. I tend to hang the wet bag from the crib so I did. As you can see my plan to make a massive wet bag was quite the success. Now my only worry is that it's too large.

If your bag turns out to be too large don't forget that wet bags have tons of other uses. For instance this is a great size for holding wet swimsuits and beach things.