DIY Wet Bag Tutorial

Whether you cloth diaper or simply have a need for a place to put wet clothes - wet bags are ABSOLUTELY a lifesaver! We use ours all the time for wet clothes after the water park or swim lessons, but they can be used for the gym, the beach, cloth diapers or even for kid accidents.

Today I'm going to show you how to make your own! Before we get started, let's familiarize ourselves with PUL fabric. PUL fabric is Soft, Breathable, Waterproof "PUL" (Polyurethane Laminate) is a fabric laminated with waterproof polyurethane on the back. It is popular and effective for cloth diapers, diaper covers, bibs, diaper bags, wet bags, changing pads and more. You can find PUL at many fabric stores, amazon.com and it comes in a variety of colors.

There are two sides to PUL fabric - a shiny waterproof side that is very slippery and a dull knit-like side. It's very important to make sure you are double checking which side is which as you are sewing this project, so in the end you have a wet bag that does it's job!

Since this fabric is waterproof (and we want to keep it that way), we need to make sure to not puncture the fabric with our needle more than necessary so we will not be pinning this bag as we piece it together. It will only be sewn together at the zipper & we will be using quilting clips in our photos, but you can use bobby pins or anything else you can think of to hold it together (anything that does not puncture the fabric.)

PUL can tend to be sticky going through your sewing machine, so there are a few options.
1. Use a walking foot if you have one, as it has extra feed dogs to pull the fabric through
2. Use tissue paper on top of the PUL, between the fabric and the foot
3. Sprinkle fabric with baby powder where you plan to sew

Materials:

- OUTSIDE: Two pieces 9” x 13” cotton fabric

- LINING: Two pieces 9” x 12.5” PUL (polyurethane laminated fabric)

- STRAP: One 3.5” x 18” strip of cotton fabric 

- Polyester Thread (Polyester thread is supposedly said to prevent wicking or leaking in your bag)

- One 9" coordinating zipper   

- Quilting clips, binder clips, bobby pins etc to hold the PUL together 

1. Cut out all your fabric pieces

2. With shiny side of the PUL up, lay one piece of your lining on your table. This is where the baby powder or tissue paper comes handy.  The shiny side of the PUL is tricky to sew on so you can either place tissue paper on top of the shiny side of the PUL, or you can dab a little baby powder over the shiny side where you will be sewing.

 
3. Place the zipper face UP on top of the PUL - even with the edge of the fabric. Place one of your outside pieces, face down right side of the fabric touching the zipper. Use quilting clips to hold these layers together. Once sewn, set aside.

4. Take your second PUL lining piece, shiny side up and put some baby powder down the side.

5. Now take your zipper sandwich from above, put the PUL on top of the other PUL layer on your table and have your outside piece be face up. Line up the zipper with the edge (as done in step 3) & place your last lining piece on top of all of these, face down. Use quilting clips to hold all layers together and use your zipper foot again to sew as close as you can now to this side of the zipper. Now, lets make the strap.

6. For the strap, fold the 3.5" strip in half long wise right sides together and sew 1/4” seam along 3 sides. Leave one side open to turn. Turn right side out, tuck in your opening, iron the strap & top stitch along all sides

7. Move all the layers over to the right side except leave one single outside layer on the left side. Line up the strap to the edge & sew the strap to JUST the cotton fabric, preferably on the side where you would start to unzip. 

8.  Take the two outer cotton layers and line up as evenly as you can, right sides together.  MAKE SURE YOUR STRAP IS INSIDE. Now do the same with the PUL layers.  Sew 1/4” seam around ALL sides, making sure to sew right on top of the zipper as you go around the sides.  Since you are sewing on the non-shiny sides, your machine should work fine on this part without tissue paper or baby powder. Leave 2 inches open on your outer layers so we can flip inside out!

 

9. Reach through the opening we left & turn the bag right side out. Iron your cotton layers with the PUL pulled out.

10. Topstitch the cotton outside layers closed & put the PUL lining back inside to complete your bag! 

Care Instructions

1) Turn wet bags with PUL liner inside out and wash on a Warm/Cold (or Hot/Cold) cycle, followed by an extra rinse. Use a cloth diaper friendly detergent. Do not use the Sanitize cycle as the water can get too hot. Do not use any softeners, bleach, or other cleaning agents that contain brighteners/additives.

2) You can dry your wet bags on LOW in the dryer or line dry. Do not dry on high, as this will delaminate the PUL layer. Do not use dryer sheets (such as Bounce) if drying in the dryer.