DiY Casserole Dish Carriers

It just so happened this year that a couple ladies on my gift list were in need of a casserole dish carrier. It also happened that one of those ladies (Jenny) had pinned an awesome tutorial, so I borrowed it off her board.

As you know I’m not an exact kind of seamstress. But this pattern was easy to follow and they turned out great. I ended up making four of them and giving them to most the ladies on my list. The original tutorial will guide you through the basic build. And this one will walk you through how to use belt strap material for the handles instead of the original version which used regular cotton material. From there I made a couple modifications of my own. Also, please forgive me for lack of pictures through each step. As I was madly working to get all these Christmas gifts finished I failed to take some pics.

First off, I used duck cloth instead of cotton for the outside layer. Why you ask? Well, because the first time I went to the store to get material I found the really cute blue with brown material on the clearance wrack and it was duck cloth. I figured I could try it out and see how it worked and go from there. Turns out it worked great and feels really sturdy so I decided to use it for all of them. After the first one I did use plain cotton material for the inside layer in a dark plain color because I thought it would hold up better to spills.

Second, I decided I didn’t want to make the long Velcro slip to hold the carrier closed because it limits usage. I chose to use elastic and buttons instead to make the closer give a little more if the dish being used was a little bigger or smaller than the one I had or the one used to create the pattern.

1.       Cut a piece of round elastic cord about 7 inches long.

2.       Fold it over in half to make a loop and stitch and wrap thread around the two ends to hold them together.

3.       Measure to center of top fold and about 1 ½ inches back from edge and sew and loop the elastic to the material. Make sure you sew and loop and pull on it to ensure it will hold.

4.       On the opposite side of the same piece sew the button about 4 ½ inches from the edge, again in the center.

5.       Do this for both the long and short pieces of material so they will each be held by a separate button/elastic closure.

I also learned that if you cheat and try to use less handle material and make them a tad too short you can fix it pretty easily. Yes, I did make the handles too short on one and I had to correct it.

1.       Sew a piece of material 1 inch longer and 2 inches wider than your extra strap piece. My strap was 1 inch wide by 7 inches long so I cut my material at 3 inches by 8 inches.

2.       Hem each end and then with the material folded in pattern side facing itself sew down the entire length of the piece.

3.       Flip it right side out and slide over the strap piece.

4.       Cut the existing straps in the middle at the top.

5.       Pin the strap piece with material over it to each end of the existing strap (make sure everything is turned the right direction).

6.       Sew the strap piece to the existing strap at each end (I took about 6 passes with my machine to make sure it was strong).

7.       Pull the material over the stitched ends and add a quick hand stitch on each side to hold it in place.

Perfect, looks like it was meant to be that way the whole time!

They all turned out well and a tad different even in the sewing with the exact same pattern (that’s me, ha!). 

Let me know if you try this one, it is a good one for beginner sewers like me.
Daspri