Nappy Bag DIY

This nappy bag is not easy, but I'm not a very experienced sew-er and I managed it (just about!).

(You may notice quite a few pictures are missing from this tutorial because a few things went wrong and I got fed up with the whole thing and didn't want to take photos! Also, I ended up doing quite a bit late at night and just wanted to get it finished.)

I had been looking for a nappy bag for my sister and failing to find one that was waterproof on the outside (she wants to not have to worry about putting it down outside or on bathroom floors etc.), the right size, pretty and a reasonable price. So... I decided to have a go at making one. 

I found this tutorial online. I'm not going to go through the process step-by-step because she does a good job of it and it is very easy to follow. I did make a few changes to the pattern so I'll go through those.

1. Firstly, I used vinyl on the outside instead of the inside, and a basic cotton for the lining. The vinyl I used was quite thick (the type you can buy from the roll for table cloths and stuff) so I didn't use interfacing. If you want a very sturdy bag that stands up completely on its own, you would still need to use it. I also didn't bother to line any of the outer pockets.

Vinyl is very difficult to sew with (I recently temporarily gave up on a project using it because I got so fed up of it not sewing right). I haven't got a fool proof solution but a few tips are:

• If you are sewing vinyl to a non-vinyl fabric, try to have the other fabric on top so that the vinyl doesn't stick to the presser foot (it may still not feed well through the machine though)
• I have seen tips online to put scotch tape on the presser foot and I guess you could also put it either side of the feeder on the bottom but I haven't tried myself
• Use paper clips instead of pins whenever you can to prevent making extra holes in the vinyl (although you probably will have to use pins in some places and it is better to do so than to sew it wrong because it slips and have to pull it back and do it again!)
• If your vinyl has a soft wrong side, have this facing out whenever possible, this should solve any feeding issues although you may still have problems with tension

2. I also decided that I wanted the outside pockets to be more spacious as I find flat pockets pretty useless. With the side pockets, this was fairly simple. I cut out 2 trapezium shapes, with the shorter side the same length as the side piece of the bag, sewed a casing and put elastic through the top edge (the longer one). I then just lined up the pocket on the side piece for the bag and sewed round the edges. I did one tall one and one short one, I thought they would be good for a water bottle and a feeder cup.

For the front pockets I designed a pattern that made a 3D double pocket from a piece of paper. Basically, you need to hem the top edge of your piece of fabric, and then draw this design onto it (you will need to move the lines depending on the size of your pocket, the margins are the depth your pocket will be) leaving a small hem allowance around the edge where you will sew it to the front of the bag. The dotted lines are just drawn on for your reference, the solid line needs to be cut and the dashed lines are where you will sew.

You then need to fold each corner (4 along the bottom to make 2 pockets), right sides together along the diagonal dotted line and sew along the dashed lines. It should look like this:

Then trim off the corner so you have a neat hem.

When you've done them all and turned it right side out, it should look something like this:

Then all you do is sew right sides out to the front piece of the bag along the seam allowance that you left.

And there you have it. This just replaces the step in the tutorial when you add the front pocket, then just treat it all the same, except for adding the fasteners. I left this until last, as I didn't have any lining on the pocket so could easily sew them on at the end, then I just worked out where they needed to be once the bag was all sewn together.

3. Finally, I wanted an adjustable strap so that it could be worn over one shoulder or two. To do this, I used some square belt loops and a belt buckle (both bought on ebay) and some webbing.

I cut a long rectangle of the vinyl, threaded it through the belt loop and sewed it securely onto the side of the bag. Once I had done this on both sides, I folded the end of the webbing through the belt buckle and sewed it together then threaded the other end through one belt loop on the bag, through the buckle and round the other belt loop them sewed it together. This explanation may sound confusing, and unfortunately I don't have pictures of this but it's fairly simple to work out and if you are unsure, look at any other bag you have with an adjustable strap. Make sure you sew all these bits on very securely using a cross shape. I did a double line of sewing around all of this.

And hopefully, you should now have a functioning nappy bag! This one has now been in use for a couple of months and seems to be doing well, I was a little worried about whether it would be strong enough but so far it's holding up!