A Laundry Bag

Whenever we travel (which really isn't that often now that we're back on the East Coast with family in driving distance), I like to keep the dirty clothes separate from the clean ones. Not only does it make the whole "living out of a suitcase" think easier, but it also simplifies the unpacking process once we get home.

For the longest time I've simply piled dirty clothes to one side of the suitcase or stashed them in a separate pocket of the duffle bag, or if we happen to be staying in a hotel, used their plastic laundry sack. And every time we get home I think: I need to get/make a travel laundry bag, but I promptly get caught up into the swirl of life and forget until the next time we go away.

Yesterday I finally did it. I took a piece of funky/ugly (I can't decide which. Some days I think this fabric is cool and funky and other days it strikes me as ugly) polyester that somehow made it into my "random fabric stash" and made a travel laundry bag.

Here it is: funky? or ugly? 

It took all of 10 minutes. And from now on our dirty clothes will be nicely separated from our clean ones and when we get home all I have to do is grab the funky/ugly bag and head to the laundry room.

Here's how I did it:
1) For the drawstring pocket: folded down about an inch along the top edge and ironed flat:

2) Folded down again about 1 1/2 inches and ironed flat

3) Unfolded the second ironed pre-fold, leaving the inch fold in place and then pined a small decreasing fold on either end (allows for finished look at the end of the drawstring pocket)

 4)Sewed down these decreasing folds the folded down the second pre-fold to create a pocket. Then Sewed along the bottom edge of that, creating the pocket.

 5) I folded the fabric in half, wrong sides facing each other and sewed an "L" shape along the raw edges  (the fold formed the other side of the bag).

 6) I cut two long stripes of two-inch wide fabric, folded and ironed them into each other and sewed along the edge to create the drawstring.

And here's the finished travel laundry bag:

You could use these instructions to make any size drawstring bag. Simple and easy!

--Sarah