Who loves doing laundry?
(WOW – I can’t believe how many people just raised their hand! Haha!)
I have to admit, it’s not my most favourite thing in the world. I’d definitely rather be sewing or knitting than sorting my darks from my lights.
But, pretty things can go a long way to making this chore a little more tolerable.
I had one of these store-bought netted wash bags for years and years. Sometimes it’s used for delicates. Other times it’s used to keep like items together in the wash.
Anyway, the one I had, the zipper finally went on it recently and at first I looked around to replace it but couldn’t find it in stores. And that’s when I thought, why not make one! This is a quick little project that could be used not only for the laundry but for organizing different items for travel or even around the home.
Supplies
- 2 pieces of mesh fabric, each 12 x 16 inches
- 2 pieces of coordinated cotton fabric, each 16 x 8 inches
- zipper at least 16 inches long
- coordinated binding (made or purchased)
This mesh fabric can be fairly easy to find at many larger fabric stores. Look for it where swimwear fabric is sold. I think I found this in the discount area of one of my local fabric stores. Colours vary, and you can even colour code your mesh bags to indicate different members in your household.
You can make this netted wash bag with regular square corners or rounded corners. I decided to do rounded because I like the look. If you’d like to do this, now is the time to round your corners on the bottom. I used a round container as my template and cut each corner.
Fold each piece of the cotton fabric so the wrong sides are together and pieces measure 16 x 4. Press with an iron.
Take one piece of the mesh fabric and one piece of the cotton fabric and line up along the top, right sides together – with the open edge of the cotton fabric at the top of the mesh fabric. Sew along the top using a quarter inch seam.
For most of the sewing on this project, I used my walking foot attachment. This attachment is very helpful for sewing when you have slippery fabric (i.e. like the mesh fabric) and also when sewing with two different weights of fabric (such as the mesh fabric and the cotton fabric).
Open and finger press the seam up towards the cotton (so you don’t see it through the mesh). Press with a cool iron (set to delicate, and tested on a scrap piece of mesh fabric first to make sure you don’t burn or melt the synthetic fabric). If you like, you can then stitch a 1/4 inch away from your seam on the cotton size to secure your seam in place.
Do the same with the other remaining piece of mesh fabric and cotton fabric.
Now it’s time to sew on the zipper. Line up the right side of the zipper to the wrong size (inside) of one side of the cotton fabric. Using the zipper foot attachment on your machine, sew as close to the zipper as you can. Attach the other side of the zipper to the remaining side (the remaining piece of cotton fabric).
Line up both of these large pieces wrong sides together (you can leave the zipper closed at this point as long as the zipper tab doesn’t get in the way of the next steps). Sometimes having it slightly open can also help you line up your fabrics at the edges, too.
If you are making your own binding, now’s the time to do that. I made my own using a strip of fabric cut on a diagonal (it will go around corners easier). I used a width of 1 ½ inches. Fold in half the long ways and press. Open and fold in each edge to the middle and press. Now fold in half with the edges folded in and press again to set.
Fold in the edges of your binding and starting at the top from one side, pin or clip your binding all the way around to the other side. If your needed mesh bag has rounded corners at the end, take care to work the binding around there so it stays nice and flat.
Sew all the way around to secure your binding.
What will you use your netted mesh bag for? How often do you use your walking foot? What is your favourite use for the walking foot?