Five Genuinely Useful New Baby Makes #3: Drawstring Bag

(image source: The Village Haberdashery)

Hi everyone! I’m a little late in my monthly instalment of my 'Five Genuinely Useful New Baby Makes' series of posts (originally published on the Village Haberdashery's beautiful blog 'The Daily Stitch').  But fear not, I'm back to state my case for another genuinely useful new-baby sewing project. 

This one, at first glance, may not scream ‘new baby’ to you, but hear me out. When my daughter was almost brand new, a friend (blogger Handmade Jane, to be precise) gave us a drawstring bag similar to this that she had made. We have used it, in one way or another, almost every day since she gave it to us. Almost every day for two years! That’s a lot of days. Nothing we were given or bought for Dolores has been used so consistently, which is why I suggest you make one the next time someone you know reproduces.

‘Well, how is a drawstring bag useful for a baby then?’ you may be asking. Well, from my experience, the use of ours has changed a bit, as Dolores has got older. This next sentence requires a graphic description warning: when babies are tiny, they do lots of wees and runny poos, which oftentimes leak onto their clothes. A parent attempting to leave the house with their baby for more than an hour without at least one entire outfit change is, quite frankly, a fool. We used to keep our drawstring bag loaded with a change of clothing at all times. It was useful to keep the change of clothing in a separate bag, as the changing kit would sometimes get transferred between the main changing bag that lived on the pushchair and her dad’s backpack for when more outward bound type travels were being attempted.

Now that Dolores is a toddler, the drawstring bag is still useful for changes of clothes that are, thankfully, these days usually required due to mud or food-based mess. It is also really useful for chucking in just a nappy, pack of wipes, a drink and snack for mini trips out.

Convinced of their worth as a new-baby sewing project?! Good! Well, I guess the next question is how to make one. For this one, I decided on what the final dimensions should be and kind of made it up as I went along. I was pretty pleased with my efforts because all the seam allowances are enclosed which gives a nice neat finish. But there are heaps of tutorials and how-to’s out there each with their own variation. This tutorial by Quilting Bees looks like a good contender, IMO, but a simple Google search for ‘lined drawstring bag tutorial’ will bring up heaps of other options.

Perhaps even more so than the baby trousers or baby shoes, with this project you can really go to town with your fabric choices. We used some 100% organic Cloud9 cotton called Whimsical Wood  from the Sweet Autumn collection, which was complimented by some solid lilac cotton for the lining. And you needn’t hold back with the trims either, as the simple addition of a row of ribbon, ricrac or braid like this neon pom pom trim used here, are easy to apply and can really make your project pop. I’ve seen some fantastic garments and craft projects via Pinterest recently that combine delicate ditsy floral fabrics with a POW! of neon, which was the inspiration behind this bag. What fabric and trims would you pick?