I’m still a little intimidated by my new serger, so last night I had the urge to go back to my normal sewing machine for a bit and make something quick and easy. One of the items on my (very long) project list was a nebulous idea to make something I decided to call “emergency diaper bags.” (Really, it’s just a simple DIY drawstring pouch — but doesn’t emergency diaper bag sound more exciting?)
There have been a couple times in the last few months where we picked up Emma from daycare but didn’t go straight home. And each time, my brain hasn’t worked well enough to actually remember to take the diaper bag (as opposed to my normal purse). This means our adorable baby turns into a ticking time bomb. At some point, she’s going to need a diaper change — and we just have to hope it doesn’t involve a poop explosion!
Therefore, I’ve been meaning to put a small bag in each car just big enough to hold a few spare diapers, a small travel pack of wipes, and a roll of small plastic bags for trash.
Ta-da! Last night I made a cute little drawstring bag, and I even was able to do it using scraps of fabric that I already had so it didn’t cost a penny! I’ve sewed enough now that I didn’t really use a tutorial for this one, although I did use a mis-mash of ideas I saw online.
One of those ideas was using a piece of grosgrain ribbon to make the casing for the drawstring. I had plenty of ribbon left over from a plushie toy I made for Emma for Christmas, and this blue polka dot seemed like a good fit.
The outer and lining fabrics were leftover from the card wallets I made over a year ago, and I used basically every single bit that was left . The drawstring is made out of the white fabric, since I didn’t have any cording. To be honest, the drawstrings are way too short — as you can see in the photo above, the bag can’t quite be fully opened! But I decided I could live with that.
This one measures about 8″x11″ and was limited by the amount of fabric I had leftover from the card wallets. I’m going to make another one for Jose’s car, and plan to use two fat quarters that I’ve had for a while. That will let me cut each piece a big larger, so I can make a bag that is more like 10″x12″.
Fits perfectly in my glove compartment! And now I can be confident that even when I forget the diaper bag in the morning, we can survive spending an hour at the doctor’s or at happy hour without fear!
p.s. I have a few other sewing projects I did for Christmas that I’ll try to share soon.
This is a great idea! We got into that situation ourselves a couple times. Our solution was to use Cory’s messenger style diaper dudes bag as Keagan’s daycare bag, so we have diapers and wipes and a wet diaper bag and change of clothes in it at all times in case we go out after work with Keagan!
Happy hour?
Sure! Emma has already been to two after-work happy hours. One was for someone’s birthday, another was for friends who moved to Ohio.
Looks great!
Btw, the trick with this is to remember to update the stash when she grows into bigger diapers. Just… Trust me on this one!