Easy PJ cuff drawstring bags
These bags are great for packing shoes in your suitcase – and they’re made from materials you probably have at home – raid the rag bag and get more use out of your old PJs. Just cut the legs to length and sew one simple seam per bag and you’re about 75% done with this project.
How To
PJ cuff drawstring bag
Equipment
- 1 Seam ripper
- 1 Scissors or rotary cutter and cutting mat
- straight pins
- needle and thread or sewing machin
- 1 5-6mm Crochet hook or prepare to use the safety pin threading trick
Ingredients
- 1 pair PJ trousers bound for the rag bag with sewn cuffs
- 1 T shirt or pair of leggings bound for same or 2 pairs of shoe strings
Instructions
The bag bit of the bag
- Iron the PJ trousers from the bottom up, about 18-20 inches up the legs.
- Measure the desired length of your bag, add about ¾ of an inch and cut – I measured against another bag I use, and found that about 15" makes a great length for shoes to go in a suitcase.
- You could just pin and sew across this newly cut open seam as is, but I chose to fold it down a slim margin – ⅜ of an inch, and pin
- Sew along the pinned seam to close up your new bag. I did a zig zag stitch, mostly because I had just done a cleaning and maintenance on my machine and I wanted to make sure everything was running well, but it is my go-to for a lot of projects, it has a little stretch to it, and I think it's generally a good choice, here I think it will combat fraying damage and along with the fold, give the bag a sturdier bottom seam. A standard, straightline, running stitch would work fine.
- Working on the open edge – find the vertical seams in the cuffs. There should be two – the inner seam and… well, the outer one… Using a seam riper or fine scissors, open these up only working below the hem, so that you don't split your bag, the point here is just to open the tube created by the cuffs. Depending on how the PJs were sewn, you may find that once you rip through the outer most seams, there's a second seam inside to get through.
Drawstrings
- Now you just need strings, I like a double drawstring. Folded in half, mine are about 2 inches longer than the bag is wide – here's how I did it:
- Cut ¾ inch strips from a t-shirt, mine was a men's medium, the loop measured 21 inches from seam to seam – so 42 inch circumference loop. I folded the shirt in 3rds and cut through the 6 layers of fabric in one go with my rotary cutter.
- Pull the strips to stretch them and curl the edges in on themselves, mine pulled out to about 26 inches long (52 inch circumference loop).
- Cut each seam, leaving you with 2 jersey knit "strings".
- Tie a slip knot in one end of one of the strips, thread a crochet hook through one side of the newly opened up drawstring tube, grab the loop of the slip knot and draw it through.If you don't have a crochet hook, you can tie a knot in the end and attach a large safety pin, you can then inch the safety pin along through the tube. Fish the safety pin and knot as far into the tube as you can, then, holding it in one hand through the fabric, bunch the tube up on the pin, then take the end of the pin in your other hand and pull the bunched fabric over it. Its hard to explain but a bit of a classic move. The crochet hook is quicker and less fiddly.
- Release the loop and thread the crochet hook through the other tube (from the other side, working towards the end with the loop in it), grab the slip knot, draw it through, and tie the ends together, I just used a simple overhand knot.
- If doing a double drawstring (c'mon you know you want to, it's a fancy bit of engineering and this has been an incredibly easy project) repeat those last two steps starting from the other side of the bag- this way you end up with a knot on each side. Having the knots on different sides isn't required, it just gives a nicer finish.
The Waffle
This would make a great first sewing project for a kid, that’s how simple it is, it feels almost insulting to write that.
It’s been on my project list for ages, I hate having shoes in suitcases without being wrapped in a bag of some sort, and I prefer the idea of fabric bags, because they can be washed, and aren’t plastic, though I generally use old used plastic bags for this.
My sewing machine was overdue a maintenance, it was starting to miss stitches and make messes, and my last project, an absolute crash through of a last minute halloween costume in something like 3 days or less, is an unholy mess if you look at the seams. It was time.
I had a day to myself, and put on a documentary and opened my 20ish year old machine up, dusted the inside out, oiled it, and closed it back up, and contemplating the fabrics and projects in various states of started, planned, or just fabric purchased, this felt like the ideal one to do with my hour or two before having to head out to pick up the kids.
I have several pairs of old PJ pants (trousers) that I loved and hated the idea of binning, but eventually they all hit the point where they could no longer be patched and so they went into the rag bag with the thought “I bet I could make draw string bags from the legs, and who knows what else from the rest of the fabric…” point proven, about 3 more pairs lined up for similar treatment.
I made one a good size for my heels, or a pair of vans, the other about 2 inches longer for knitting or crochet projects.
My daughter’s been begging me to show her how to use the sewing machine – this project is sewing one straight line, and if it’s not straight, not perfect, it should still make a functional bag, so this will be her first project.
Drawstring bags are INCREDIBLY simple to make, but using the cuff of the trousers as the drawstring channel/tunnel/chunnel? saves you… 2 seams and a step or two depending on how you’d write the instructions out. 2. two steps. Is pinning a separate step? Then it’s 4. It just makes it that much simpler. Because these trousers had their leg seams, and then the serger selvage seam, I had to rip through 2 seams on each side to open up the tube (chunnel?). Simples.
Will be doing this project on repeat.