It's Pet Week! ~ For Walking the Dog: Leash Bag

I don't know about where you live, but where I live it's law that you clean up after your dog if it goes #2 while you're in a public place. So today I'll show you how to make a pouch to carry plastic bags in that you can attach to your dog's leash.

You can use the same principles as shown here to make a bigger bag for yourself or use the same size for gift bags! Attach a handle and you've got a great shopping bag!

What you need:

* A metal clip

* Two long rectangles of fabric

* Some sturdy cord or ribbon

* 2 big wooden beads

What to do:

Fold both of your rectangles in half, right sides facing, and pin them reading for sewing.

Cut a short length of your ribbon, slide your clip onto it and fold it in half. Tuck it inside the edge of your outer fabric, open ends facing the edge.

Sew up both sides of your outer fabric, catching the ribbon in the seam. You can sew back over the ribbon's section of seam a couple of times for strength. Also sew up both sides of your lining fabric.

[ Apparently you didn't need a photo for this step :-/ ]

Now we're going to do boxed corners! 

Take the bottom corner of your "bag" and flatten it out, like this:

Now we're going to sew across the corner, perpendicular to the seam that we already sewed.

Repeat this for both bottom corners on your outer and lining fabrics. It should look like this:

Now trim the excess fabric off. Repeat for the lining fabric too.

Turn your outer fabric "bag" right side out. It'll look like this:

So, you should have your outer fabric turn right side facing out, and your lining fabric should still be right side in. Is that confusing?? Hopefully this photo explains:

Roll over the edge of your lining fabric.

Sew across the seam, just a few centimetres, so you end up with this:

With the outer fabric, roll the edge inside and then sew across the matching seam for the same length.

Now, pop the lining fabric "bag" inside the outer fabric "bag" so that those little sewn sections match up. Pin the "bags" together ready for sewing.

Sew around the top edge of the whole bag except for those few centimetres where you already sewed on the individual layers. This attaches the two layers but leaves a small hole!

Now sew around the entire bag, including the hole we left, but about a 1.5 cm below where you just sewed. This should leave you with a nice "tube" area where we'll pop a ribbon through.

It should look like this:

Take your long ribbon, and pin the end with a safety pin. This makes it easier to thread through the tube we just made.

Push the safety pin into the hole, around the edge, and back out the hole from the other side.

To make sure the ribbon doesn't slip back into the tube area (it's pretty hard to get it out again!) tie a big bead to each end of the ribbon, knotting below the bead so it doesn't fall off. Trim your ribbon now.

Stuff it full of little sandwich bags! 

a.k.a doggy poo bags :P

Pull the ribbons tight and knot them loosely together, and you're done!

Much cuter than those the shop bought pouches!

Benny's a big boy now, he can even carry his own bag!

Nice work dude!

Actually, I wouldn't make him carry it like that. I'd rather attach it to the handle of my leash, otherwise he might get it caught on something. He's a bit of a duffer <3

So, feeling more stylish about your dog related responsibilities now? :D