Keep your homemade bread fresh longer with these easy reusable bread bags that can be sewn in under thirty minutes.
In today’s post, I’m going to be sharing how to sew a reusable bread bag. I love these things. They require only a few materials, can be made in less than thirty minutes, and help keep your homemade bread fresh longer.
Fabric bread bags are also a great way to cut down on plastic wastes like ziplocks. Not to mention they can be made with beautiful fabrics. So you can have a cute bread bag sitting on your counter stuffed with freshly baked homemade bread that isn’t a total eye sore. I’m all about beautiful, yet practical.
Are Bread Bags Good Beginner Sewing Projects?
One hundred percent, yes! Bread bags are excellent beginner projects as well as bowl covers, which you can find here. They require no serger and very little sewing experience. As long as you can sew a straight line, you’re good to go with these! Or even if you’re not so great as sewing a straight line. Learning how to sew a reusable bread bag is great practice for that.
What Supplies are Needed to Sew Reusable Bread Bags?
Just a few things. Below I’ve made a shopping list for you.
- 1 Yard Fabric – Linen or cotton or a cotton / linen blend
- Fabric Scissors
- String or Ribbon – 2 yards
- Matching Thread
- Pins
- Safety Pin
Which Type of Material Should You Use For Bread Bags
When trying to figure out how to sew a reusable bread bag, you might consider the different fabric choices. For this particular project, either linen or linen cotton material is ideal. You want the bag to be breathable, yet not so much that it allows the bread to go stale quickly.
This breathability that linen and cotton offer also prevent the bread from getting moldy or soggy like a plastic bag would cause. A good online shop for quality linen is this shop here.
How to Sew a Reusable Bread Bag: Cut & Sew Main Fabric
To start, you want to make sure as always that you have washed and dried your fabric. It won’t ruin the project if you don’t, it just helps with shrinking.
Cut out two fabric rectangles that are 17 inches long by 13 inches wide.
After you get your pieces cut out, you want to pin them along the sides and the bottom with right sides together.
You will want to either place different colored pins or mark on your fabric with a disappearing marker at the two inch mark from the top of your work. This is going to be an indicator for where you will start sewing starting and stop sewing.
Per the above picture, you will start sewing where the black line starts on your right side using a 1/2 inch seam allowance. From here, sew straight down until you get 1/2 inch from the bottom of the fabric and pivot your needle at the X. At this point you will be sewing along the bottom seam. Pivot again at the next X, working your way up along the left side of the rectangle. Stop stitching where your mark or pin was placed.
At the top open part that you have not sewn, press down a 1/2 inch lip to the wrong side of the fabric. Do this on each side. This is going to be your rolled edge to hide the raw edge on the drawstring casing.
How to Sew a Reusable Bread Bag: Sew Casing
Next you’re going to start sewing the casing for the draw strings to run through. At the top where the casing will be, press 1/2 inch of the raw edge over along the side.
You will end up with a V that looks like this with rough edges pressed to the wrong side of the fabric.
Starting at the right again, stitch along the sides of the V shape. This will secure the raw edges in on the sides of the casing. This step will need to be done on both sides of the bag.
After that, fold down the top of the bag 1 inch to the wrong side of the fabric, creating the casing. Press the fabric so it stays pull while sewing.
Now, sew along the edge of that 1 inch fold over.
How to Sew Reusable Bread Bag: Drawstrings
At this point, your bread bag is 90% done. The finishing step is to install the drawstrings.
You can use whatever you prefer here. I chose a braided string, but ribbon of some sort would also work. You’ll need two 37 inch long strings. Attach a safety pin to one side of the string.
Run one string through either the front or back casing you created, bringing it through the opening on the side into the opposite side’s casing. The two ends of the string will meet. Know them together.
Do the same thing with the second string, only run it the opposite direction of the first string you inserted. Knot this one when ran through as well.
And it’s really that simple. These are so easy to create, you could make a bunch in one go and give them as gifts, or sale them to other bread bakers. Either way, have fun and happy sewing!
