Reusable Sandwich Wrap...A tutorial.

I've been sending super tasty peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to school with Arjun for his lunch lately.  He LOVES them.  Actually....they are soynut butter and jam sandwiches.  On our favorite homemade bread.  Still our favorite, but we've been dumping a glob of honey into the dough in honor of Pooh.  Oh, and we've been experimenting with sprouted wheat flour, replacing some of the bread flour with it.
Anyway....I've been needing something reusable to wrap the sandwiches in.  Either they swim in the containers we have or I have to cut them into shapes.

So here we have it:
I decided to use woven fabric from my stash so that all I'd need to buy was some vinyl sheeting.  They sell it by the yard at many fabric stores.  You'll be likely to find it in the upholstery section.
1.  Decide on an inside and outside fabric for the wrap.  I had a small piece of this excellent dragon fabric. (Thanks Elisa!)

I thought it would be fun to unwrap a sandwich and find a cool creature inside.  Then I thought it would be really, really funny to unwrap a sandwich and find these Australian grubs inside.

So I decided to make two wraps.  The red fab with dots looks picnicky to me so I chose that for the outside.

2.  Cut 3 12"X12" squares; one of the outside fabric, one of the inside fabric and one of the vinyl.
 Also cut a 1.5"X3" piece of fabric for the tab to slide the corner through while wrapping.

3.  Fold the tab fabric in about 1/4" on each of the long sides and press.  Then fold the whole strip in half.  Press again, then stitch.

4.  Turn each end of tab under and pin about 2 inches in from one corner of the outside fabric.

5.  Stitch.  I used a button hole stitch here and I think that a zig zag stitch is appropriate.  Since you'll be pulling the other end of the fabric through the tab, it will need to be pretty sturdily stitched.

 6.  Here's the tricky part:  Lay your three fabrics out in the order that you intend for them to be in the end.

Then bring the bottom one up and place it on top of the pile.
The final order - from bottom to top - should be:  Inside fabric face up, vinyl, then outside fabric face down.  The trickiest part of this whole project is getting the layers in the proper order so that you don't see any of the unsightly seams.

7.  Since we will not be wanting to create unnecessary holes in our vinyl, we will use hair slides to hold our layers together rather than pins.  Also, because of the vinyl, we will want to set our machine to stitch fairly long stitches.  Close together stitches will perforate the vinyl and make it more likely to tear at the seam.
8.  Stitch all the way around the square leaving an opening to turn the layers right side out.  Trim corners, then turn right side out.  This part is also a bit tricky, and requires attention to which layer you want where.

9.  After poking out the corners, finger press the entire wrap.  Pull tightly across the opening.  Place a layer of paper over the opening so that your presser foot does not get stuck on the vinyl and stitch the opening closed.

Tear away the paper and you are ready to wrap!