Say sayonara to saran wrap! We've never felt good about the amount of saran wrap we use in the kitchen, but even more so now that we have half-eaten yogurts and mini-meals abandoned by our toddler. Our guilt finally motivated us to make some shower-cap style bowl covers.
What You Need
Materials
cotton laminate or oilcloth (some good sources here - check the comments too)
1/4" elastic (other sizes will work too - see note below about how much)
scissors
thread
bowls to trace
crayon, marker or pen
pinking shears (optional)
Equipment
sewing machine
Instructions
1. Select bowls or other circular objects for tracing. Keep in mind that the finished cover will be smaller than the bowl you trace so choose a bowl template bigger than what you want to cover in the end.
2. Trace your bowl onto the wrong side of your cloth with a crayon, pen, marker or whatever you have at hand.
3. Cut out the shape with scissors.
4. Sew your elastic to the wrong side of your cloth making sure to backstitch. I did mine about 1/2" in from the edge. You may want to go 3/4" or 1". I used a straight stitch (which you can see didn't turn out so straight). You could also use a zig-zag stitch. IMPORTANT: Once you've made a few stitches to hold it in place, pull the elastic tightly as you sew so that it gathers.
5. Overlap the beginning and ending of the elastic slightly, backstitch and snip off the unused elastic.
6. Trim edges with pinking shears if you like.
Additional Notes: How much elastic should I use you may wonder? Of course it depends on your bowl size. I don't think it's worth trying to figure out exactly how much you need - it's easier to just start with a longish piece and cut it off at the end.
I'll be the first to admit that I'm not great at figuring things out - if you have a different approach to making bowl covers or improvements to add please share them in the comments.
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(Images: Carrie McBride)
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genius!!!!!! going to have to try this
love this!
How clever - you've got a great business idea here. Last fall we featured a mom who stitches her own sandwich bags using great fabrics, and her business (SnackTaxi) was even featured on Oprah. Seems everyone's looking for smarter, green solutions to use around the house; thanks for the how-to. Now I just have to learn how to sew ... unless you're planning to start selling yours??
This is fantastic! Unlike clothing or furnishings, it really doesn't matter if you're a novice sewer and it comes out kind of janky looking.
With no free time to learn to sew, I would definitely buy if you would make!
These are waaaay too grandma for me. What's wrong with Tupperware and covered glass dishes?
burnttoast - tupperware and covered glass dishes mean double dishes and that's a big benefit of just covering the original dish. i don't have a dishwasher so maybe that's why i value it.
Carrie
Or you could just use a plate over the bowl. As long as the plate does not touch the food in the bowl, it stays clean and ready to be used again for it's primary purpose...
Do you have to use oil cloth? Would cotton fabric work just as well or not? Sorry if that is a dumb question...just wondering. I think it's a cool idea!
Akgreengirl - not a dumb question. Oilcloth is waterproof - cotton is not. so any moisture in whatever you're storing would just escape, whereas with the oilcloth it would mostly be kept in place.
Just a thought - why couldn't you use a shower cap for bigger bowls. I'd never thought of it before until I saw your idea.
http://goddesshobbies.blogspot.com/2009/07/ecolovies-no-plastic-wrap-bowl-wraps.html
This is a version I did last summer. They work amazingly well!
The new oilcloth is not safe. Plastic is plastic is plastic... even when glued to fabric.
Too much plastic.
I'm with the post from adk_lakes on February 10th 2010 at 10:10pm
Even if the oilcloth is plastic, at least it's not plastic that's ending up in the garbage after each use like saran wrap is.
If I made something like this I'd probably go for PUL, instead of oilcloth, like what's used in the link Val in the Rose Garden posted. It's machine washable, as a fabric commonly used with cloth diapering too. And also used in those re-usable sandwich baggies these days as well.
A very clever idea! And could even be adapted to fit my rectangular pyrex dishes...
I'm with Annuin on using PUL.
A lot of what is advertised as oilcloth is actually PVC vinyl made overseas. Lead is a common softener in PVC.
Similarly many of the clear plastics sold by the yard are PVC. I don't know if it's possible to tell if it's food-safe.
When I was travelling for work a lot, I would collect shower caps from hotels for just this purpose! This is a great idea, and I made my own using a plastic tablecloth I picked up at Goodwill. Here's the link: http://handcraftedlife.blogspot.com/2010/03/finishing-recycling-upcycling.html
(you have to scroll down a bit.)
I love these things. I can't sew for crap though LOL. I just buy mine from hyenacart.com/rebelTLCs. The chick who makes them is amazing, she uses food safe nylon instead of oilcloth though.
I love anything to get rid of throwing away plastics and aluminum foil in the kitchen! Cool idea! thanks.
I once found a plastic at a craft store- it was meant to be ironed on to fabric to make things like raincoats, but I used it to iron on and make my own reusable sandwich bags. I'd prefer oil cloth, but if you can't find that, try the plastic stuff. Read carefully to be sure you get the food safe one.