Sewing: Week Sixteen Travel Dopp Kit

Travel dopp kit – this is the perfect little item to keep my toiletries organized and it’s big enough to fit a little first aid kit and our malaria meds while we are travelling off the continent. Plus, it’s pretty! The sewing tutorial is close to the boxy bag I made last year – it’a actually exactly the same process, just different measurements. Let’s get sewing!

What You Need

• 4 pieces of structured fabric cut 13 inches x 14 inches
• 1 14″ zipper that matches
• matching thread
• machine
• iron
• ironing board
• pins
• scissors
• machine
• serger
• 2 3×3 pieces of matching scrap fabric
• chalk pen
• ruler

Cut

Okay – first gather some coordinating fabric. For this project I made use of some scraps, so the outside is a combination of some different patterned squares – I just serged them together and cut it to the correct measurements. Once you’ve got your 4 pieces cut (the top will be 14 inches, and the sides 13 – that way you can make sure your fabric is up right!) be sure to iron them flat so you’ve got nice edges.

Zipper

Now, get your zipper ready. I used a long zipper and cut it to 14 inches (just be sure the zipper pull in on the inside of each cut).

Grab your scrap fabric and pin it to the end of the zipper, folding the edge under. This will give your zipper some added flair, but it will make it easer to serge the dopp kit together – it’s easier to serge through fabric than a zipper!

Do this on both sides of the zipper.

Stitch

Okay – now you’ve got your zipper ready and the outer and inner fabric set. Time to assemble.

Put the outside fabric right side up. Then, lay the zipper right side down, lining up the top of the zipper with the top of the outer fabric.

Now, place the inner fabric right side down, matching up the top, essentially sandwiching the zipper between the two right side in fabrics. Top stitch with your zipper foot.

If you pull the fabric back, you can see they’re both attached to the zipper and the wrong sides of the fabric are back to back.

Repeat the sandwich process on the other side.

Fold the wrong sides together and serge the bottom of the inner fabric together. Then, serge the right sides together for the outer fabric. You want all the seams on the inside of the kit.

Box

Time to make the boxy structure of the dopp kit.

Fold the fabric so the seam you just made is directly under the zipper. The wrong sides of the fabrics are back to bag. You’ll work with the inner fabric on the outside.

Serge the ends of the kit together. This is where it’s awesome to have those zipper extensions in – the serger cuts right through them.

Chalk out the corners – I measured them at 4 inches.

Serge those corners, serging through the inner and outer fabric, making the seam on the inside, just like the rest. Do this on all 4 corners.

Done

That’s it! Press it with the iron and knot off those serger seams and you’re set.

Time to pack up and get ready to travel!