Easy Clothespin Bag

It's hotter than a sweatband in a fireman's helmet!  Sheesh! You'd think I lived in the south, instead in northern Michigan.  I had to get up early to weed raspberries or I'd have looked like one!

I finally have time to get back to projects.  My craft room is still on hold.  Hubby ended up working for a friend (a paying job), and he won't turn that down.  I'm trying to convince him to take a working vacation.  We have so much to do around here.  He usually takes one or two weeks every summer for that reason.

Since I can't work on my craft room right now and since it was too hot to poke my head out the door, I decided to do a quick sewing project that's been on the back burner for awhile.  My trusty old clothespin bag had bitten the dust.  I had resorted to pinning it on the clothesline.

This is a pinterest inspired project.  It was very simple and took about an hour to make.  I loosely followed the instructions found on Is it Naptime Yet?  Christy made this cute shark bag.

Source: blog.christyscreations.com via Deborah on Pinterest

I made a couple of changes, so I'll show the steps I went through.  You will need to cut two pieces each of coordinating fabrics (you should have 4 pieces).  Although Christy cut hers 13 x 19, I decided to measure my hanger at the last minute, before cutting.  It's a good thing I did, my hanger was almost 14 inches long.  So I cut my pieces 15" x 19."  Apparently all child size hangers are not the same!

Because my fabric was heavy weight decor fabric, I eliminated the iron on adhesive.  I just pinned the two different fabrics together, wrong sides together.  Then I zigzag stitched all the way around. This gave it a nice finish on the inside too, with no raveling threads for the clothes pins to get tangled in.

Next you want to fold down 1/2 inch at the top of each piece.  Fold it toward the side that will be the inside of your bag.  I added the step of stitching about two inches in the middle (the pin marks the middle). This is where the hanger will poke through, and I didn't want my fabric flipping up.

Lay your hanger on one of the pieces.  My hanger was shaped a bit differently than Christy's, so where it touches the folded edge isn't exactly in the center.  To see where the hole for the hanger will be, fold down the corners around the hanger, making sure it is straight on your fabric and each end is equidistant from the edges.

Mark the placement of the top edges of the hanger and the top of the curved part.  This will be your sewing line.  I used a disappearing ink pen you can find at any sewing center.

Lay a ruler about 1 inch under the bottom of you hanger, mark a straight line across and cut.  Do this to only 1 piece.  It will be the front of the bag.

Then add bias tap to the raw edges you just cut.  If you want, you can cut bias tape from some of your inside fabric, or just buy bias tape.  I didn't have the right color on hand, so I cut my own.  I had a 13" wide piece so I squared it off, traced a line (in purple) from corner to corner with a sewing ruler, then traced parallel lines on either side as a guide.  Finally I traced two 1 1/2 " strips as wide as my bag (In my case 15")

Fold 1/4" on each long edge of the tape.  Sew the seam binding to each cut edge of the panel you just cut.

Sew the top (smaller piece), that you marked, to the back piece, right sides together; sew along marks and down the sides, leaving an opening at the top for the hanger.

Trim and zigzag the edges.

Pin, sew and trim the bottom half.

Another change I made was to angle the bottom corners to make them more rounded.

Flip your bag right side out, slip your hanger in and fill her up!

Just hangin' out. enjoying the fresh breeze.

I think this would make a great plastic bag holder too!

Have a great Independence Day!

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