Sewing Eco Wraps and Bags

I finally found the power cord to my sewing machine, so I was able to put into action, some ideas that have been rolling around in my head for some time now... Waxed cotton sandwich wrappers and lunch bags. These are simple in design and work beautifully now that they have been put through their paces. The idea is that waxing a piece of cotton fabric with beeswax, makes it water resistent and make the fabric maleable and moldable to hold its shape around a sandwich and keep it fresh until you eat it.

I toyed with several designs and finishing techniques, but ended up with the simplest version working the best in my trials. It is a basic square of fabric with edges finished with a zigzag machine stitch, then dipped into hot beeswax to completely saturate the fabric with wax, and then clean all the excess wax off to make it user friendly. When they are new, they are quite stiff, but soften up with repeated use.

The zigzag stitched edges are so that there is very little food and crumbs that are caught and held by folded over hems. The stitching is essentially "held" down by the beeswax. to maintain, all you need to do is shake the crumbs off and wipe it down, If its really dirty, it can be washed. I would recommend hand washing over machine washing and NO dryer. It drys pretty quickly just air drying.

I have 2 shapes for these wraps. The above one is for more "traditional" sandwiches, which are more square. I also created a rectangular version for sandwiches created with more oblong artisan bread or tortilla wraps (shown below).

Since I was on a roll, I also created some reusable lunch bags that have a shape similar to the tried and true brown lunch bag. These are also waxed and have a wonderful structure to them. I have several different models, and lots of fun colorsfor spring so there should be something for everyone. There is even one, I am tempted to use as a purse!