Wondering what a “ditty bag” is? Â Don’t worry, I didn’t know what they were either until I made 10 of them.
That’s a ditty bag. Â Apparently they use these on stage. Â Actors and actresses use these. Â Shoes are put in one side, costume accessories are put on the pockets of the other side and the costume is hung over the top. Â GREAT for organization….I am thinking they would be great for a mom helping their child organize their clothes for the week too.
The assistant director for our high school musical production asked if I would make some. Â She said that the fabric didn’t matter…nor did the sewing, just so they could do the job.
I didn’t have heavy weight fabric, so I thought I would use a double layer of fabric….I didn’t have that much fabric so I dug through my old sheets and came up with some fabric and it worked PERFECTLY.
To start you will need a piece of sheet that is 18 inches by 90+ inches. Â Sew the piece together right sides together along the 18″ length. Â Turn right side out. Â Fold in half. Â Fold in half again.
Put the double folded edge to the top and lay a coat hanger at the top. Â Take a marker and draw a line using the coat hanger as a guide. Â Leave a space without line so that the clothes hanger will be able to go through the opening. Â Then measure from the bottom of the fabric up 8″ and mark. Â Now sew from the eight line up the sides and around the curve of the hanger. Â Stop at the opening. Â Sew the same area on the opposite side.
Cut along the stitching. Â Clip at the 8″ line and clip around the curve. Â Then turn right side out.
Now that it is right side out, turn the area at the 8″ line out as shown. Â Sew.
Now you need to turn the sewn area up. Â This will be the pockets. Â Sew along the seam line through all of the layers.
Measure and mark where you want the pockets and sew.  For these, I sewed at each seam line.  Then I sewed one line down the center of the front making the shoe pocket.  Then I sewed two lines on the opposite side making three pockets on the that side to hold accessories for the costume.
It took about 25 minutes to make each one once I had the pattern figured out. Â You could down size these measurements if you are making them to fit child size hangers.
Have you checked out Quiltmaker’s 100 block magazine….
I love the ditty bag! I need to make some of those!!! Thanks for the tutorial!
sao in Midlothian, VA
We used to call our holiday shower bags ditty bags. All our bathroom necessities – soap, toothbrush/paste, comb/brush etc was packed into these little bags. They were mostly a plastic type with a drawstring top.
Maybe this is a downunder thingy :-)
this tutorial is really hard to follow. The print on the fabric makes it very difficult to see what is going on in the photos. Also your verbal instructions are very vague.
Also struggling to follow your tutorial for the same reasons as Kay Mac.
I can’t follow this tutorial whatsoever. I need to make approximately 25 of these for a huge production in a few weeks, and there are no tutorials online that I’ve found for this specific ditty bag, except this one. I am so stressed that the only one I found is too hard to follow.
My email was incorrect in my previous comment. If anyone has any better tutorial suggestions for this specific ditty bag, I would ever-so-greatly appreciate it. I’m desperate at this point.