Recently I was commissioned to make reusable sandwich sacks for someone who wanted to minimize the plastic baggies she was sending to school with her kids. Therefore I set to work and ended up using a similar design from another bag I make. Here is the tutorial for you!

Step One: Cut one long narrow rectangle from ripstop nylon. In my research, this in the only synthetic type fabric that is considered food safe. Do not use oilcloth or vinyl, these contain chemicals that you do not want to leach into non dry food.

Step Two: Determine which side is the inside by looking closely for the waterproof sheen that is visible. Fold in half length wise and sew seams together. I used a French Seam (it explains it about half way down)

Step Three: Measure from your finished seam over 1 1/2 inches, fold at this mark on the outside of the bag, sew a 1/8 inch ‘false’ seam. This simply creates corners  without having cut pieces of fabric that you are piecing together to get the same result.

Step Four: At this point you have a rectangle bag that is open at the top and bottom. Turn the bag, wrong side out. To sew to bottom closed you need to tuck in the short sides of the sack to form a gusset. Sew the bottom closed with a 5/8 inch seam. I rolled in my raw edge and topped stitched it as well. Turn the bag right side out.

Step Five: Sew on velcro. Make sure you do not buy adhesive velcro, one: you cannot use your machine to sew it on and two: it is not designed for fabric. Get sew on velcro. I used the supper soft one and cut it in half to create a thin strip for these small sacks. Test fold the top and make a mark where you want the velcro to be. Then sew it on using a zigzag stitch. One piece will be about 2 inches from the top edge of the bag and the other piece will be a the top edge of the opposite side, where you won’t see it from the front.

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