Homemade Sandwich Wraps and Snack Bags
I think I just upped my crunchiness factor again!
While Dave and Lindsey (my brother-in-law and his girlfriend) were staying with us recently, Lindsey and I were discussing crafty projects we could make for Christmas presents. We discussed handkerchiefs, market bags, reusable vegetable bags for in the fridge, sandwich wraps, and snack bags.
We didn’t get around to any of it before Christmas … mostly because she was gone through November and December! (She was, however, still good enough to be crafty in her Christmas presents!)
When she arrived again in January, we happened to go on a trip to Ottawa Street - Hamilton’s fabric and antique district. While there, I purchased some cotton as well as some rip-stop nylon.
These things are easy and fun to make! I won’t even BEGIN to pretend that I’m a decent sewer - in fact, I would definitely consider myself to be a novice. So if you’re concerned you won’t be able to figure this out, I say you can!
The first thing I made was a reusable sandwich wrap. I did a bunch of research online and found that I liked Toward Sustainability’s Homemade Sandwich Wrap the best. However, I didn’t like the idea of plastic actually in contact with my food (after all, if I didn’t care about it, why would I bother making these?). I knew I had a couple of options for waterproof layers - vinyl (um … I don’t like to wrap my sandwiches in reproductive toxins, you?), PUL (not sure about how food-safe it is, and it wasn’t readily available), oilcloth (I’d love to use this stuff if it still exists!), and nylon. In order to keep the waterproof layer away from the food entirely, I decided to use two layers of cotton sandwiching (pardon the pun!) what I opted for - rip-stop nylon.
So I kinda followed the directions and kind of made it up. I quickly realized that I couldn’t just sew it closed and turn it inside out, since it was three layers and not two, so I ended up just folding over the edges of the three pieces of cloth, pinning them together and hemming them. Next time, I’m going to try the two cotton pieces with right sides facing, and then the nylon on top … I *think* that should work for turning it inside-out so that there’s no fraying fabric on the outside!
The second item I made was a reusable snack bag. I again researched a bunch of patterns and settled on the we wilsons’ Reusable Snack Bag Tutorial. I followed this one pretty much exactly, except I again sandwiched the nylon between two layers of cotton so that the food would be touching only cotton. It took a bit of finagling, but I figured it out - maybe the next one I make I’ll take pictures as I go!
The next set I made was much … nicer. As always happens with projects, I think, I knew what I was doing and what the problems might be (although I still hadn’t figured out that I can probably flip the wrap inside-out) and I made the snack bag much bigger - it’s about 6″ by 6″ total, I think. The plaid one is perfect for quick snacks for Gwen, but a bit impractical for adult-sized snacks.
This set was given to Lindsey for her birthday (and in the picture, you can see how the wrapped sandwich would sit).
I bought a bunch of material and am hoping to sew up a few more sandwich wraps and snack bags for Brad as well as some fun snack bags for Gwen and I to use on our outings - it’s MUCH easier to give her a snack bag to eat on the run than a container!
And in case you’re wondering, I’ve washed Brad’s sandwich wraps and snack bag just in my dish water and let them air dry. They both can often just be shaken free of crumbs and used again right away, but if they’re soiled (for example, by an egg salad sandwich!), the food comes right off the cotton with a little swish and wipe 
