It's In The Bag!
by Serena Smith
www.embtreasures.com
Are you looking for a place to store your plastic bags? You can
make the perfect kitchen caddy with your favorite embroidery designs!
Supplies
1/4 yd solid fabric for embroidery
½ yd coordinating print
1 yd lightweight fusible interfacing
½ yd of 1/4 inch wide elastic
Water soluble pen
O ring
Embroidery designs of your choice
Rotary cutter
Cutting mat & ruler
Fabric Preparation
• Using a rotary cutter, cutting mat and ruler, cut a 8"x 32" rectangle from the
solid fabric. Cut the same measurement from the fusible interfacing. Fuse the
interfacing to the fabric. This provides more stability for the embroidery.
• Use a water soluble pen to mark the vertical lengthwise center on the fused
fabric. Mark a horizontal line 6" up from the bottom. Mark additional horizontal
lines 11", 16", 21", and 26" up from the bottom.
• From the coordinating print, cut a 12"x 24" rectangle for the caddy and two
17"x 5" pieces for caddy facings.
Embroidery
• Select a border that is no larger than 1 ½" wide x 4" long and three designs
that are no larger than 4"x 4". The border will be stitched on the 6" and 26"
marks. The three designs will be stitched on the 11", 16" and 21" marks.
• Hoop your stabilizer and spray it with 505 spray adhesive. Place the fabric in
the hoop, using your grid to align the lowest horizontal marked line. Be sure
the lines on your grid are parallel with the lines on your fabric! If it is not,
your designs will look crooked. Stitch the border design.
• Rehoop and stitch each of the remaining three designs and the border at the
top of the fabric piece. Remember to mirror image the top border if needed!
Depending on the size of your hoop, you may be able to stitch more than one
design in one hoop.
• Trim the embroidered piece to 6" wide, keeping the designs centered
vertically. Trim off each short edge so it measures 24" long.
Sew It Together
• Stitch the long edges of the 12" x 24" coordinating fabric to each side of the
embroidered piece in a ½” seam.
• Stitch the short ends of the 17" x 5" facing piece together in a ½" seam.
Press the seam open. Serge around one long edge of the facing.
• Place the right side of the facing along the right side of the upper portion
of the bag, matching raw edges. Stitch together in a ½" seam.
• Wrap the facing to the inside of the bag around the seam allowance and fold to
the wrong side. Press. The facing should cover the seam allowance.
• To form the elastic casing, stitch a straight stitch 3 1/4" from the fold
through the facing and the bag fabric. Stitch again 3/8" from the first row to
the inside of the bag, leaving an opening for inserting the elastic.
• Insert the elastic, overlap the ends and stitch securely. Adjust the gathe
rs
and stitch the opening shut.
• Repeat this process for the lower end of the bag.
• Turn the bag right side out. Hand stitch an O ring at the center back just
above the elastic casing at the top.
• Insert plastic grocery bags into the top of the caddy. Pull individual bags as
needed from the lower part of the bag. Hang it up in your kitchen and enjoy!!
You can view more ideas for bag caddies in my gallery here and here.
Click here to open an Acrobat Reader pdf file for printing. PDF file currently unavailable due to technical problems - check back to download this file.
Copyright © 2006 Serena Smith
These instructions are not to be sold or distributed in any way without my
permission.
Direct others to www.embtreasures.com
for downloading. Thank You!
