Tutorial: How to Make a Bread Bag

Even if you don’t bake your own bread, these bread bags are great for storing shop-bought bread in. Not only does it look waaaaay better than those horrible plastic wrappers, but it’s easier to keep closed, thus helping to prevent your bread from going stale or mouldy. This tutorial will make a bread bag suitable for bread made in most standard bread loaf tins. You can tweek the dimensions if you have abnormally large tins or a breadmaker.

Equipment:

• 20″ by 17″ piece of heavy-duty fabric such as canvas or ticking
• coordinating thread
• a strip of fabric measuring 15″ long by 2″ wide for the tie. Alternatively you can use some thick ribbon or cotton tape
• an iron and ironing board

Things to consider: Do not attempt to use a drawstring instead of the tie, it will not close tightly enough and you will have a small air hole at the top of your bag (I learnt the hard way). A tie closure means you can get it nice and tight around the neck of the bag, ensuring your bread stays fresh.

Step 1:

Using your iron, press down a quarter of an inch on the top of your piece of fabric, folding in to the wrong side of the fabric. Do this again with another quarter of an inch of fabric so that the raw edge is enclosed in the double fold.

Step 2:

Topstitch the pressed hem closed at the top.

Step 3:

Fold fabric so that both sides meet, right sides together, and stitch together, using a quarter-inch seam allowance. When you get to the bottom of the fabric, pivot your fabric round 90 degrees and continue sewing, stitching the bottom of the bag closed.

Step 4:

Zigzag your seams.

Step 5:

Give your bag a square bottom by taking each corner, one at a time, and manipulating it so that the seam runs down vertically from the corner and you have a triangular shape. Using a ruler measure where the triangle is 4″ across and draw a line here (in pencil). Stitch over the line.

Repeat for the other corner. Once you have stitched across both corners this way cut off the fabric triangle about half an inch from your stitches and then zigzag the seam of the bag.

The photographs are probably easier to understand than my garbled instructions.

Step 6:

Turn the bag right sides out. Now you can make your tape to tie the bag closed. Take your long thin piece of fabric and press the two short edges a quarter of an inch down, with wrong sides together. Then bring the two long edges together, wrong sides together and press. Then open up and fold over each edge again into the middle crease. Once the two edges are pressed into the middle of the strip of fabric fold it in half again along your middle crease and press again. Topstitch the edges together to close the strip of fabric. You should now have a strip of fabric tape to use as the tie for the bag.

Step 7:

Sew your tape to the bag. Along the seam at the top of the bag, about an inch down from the top hem, pin your fabric and then sew it in place using a rectangle pattern with a cross in it. This gives a very secure stitch.

Your bag is now ready to use!

Yes, I know, I need a new ironing board cover. It is on my list of things to do, I promise.