Homemade Sleeping Bag Liner

Sew a sleeping bag liner to keep your bag cleaner.

Backpackers and campers use their sleeping bags with great frequency throughout the camping season. No matter how careful you are to keep dirt out of your sleeping bag, socks and clothes will pick up soil and transfer it into the bag. A sleeping bag liner will help to eliminate this problem. While the dirt may still get transferred, you will only have to wash a light liner, which fits in with a load of laundry, instead of taking a sleeping bag to the laundromat.

Things You'll Need

• 4 yards cotton fabric
• Scissors
• Pins
• Sewing machine
• Cording
• Large safety pin
• 2 barrel lock toggles

Instructions

1. Remove the selvage edges from the fabric, if it has any. The selvage is the tightly woven edge of the fabric that runs vertically along the entire piece of material.

2. Fold the fabric in half horizontally so that it measures 45 inches across and 2 yards in height. Place the right sides of the fabric together. Lay this folded fabric on a table or other flat surface with the fold at the bottom. Pin together the two layers of the right and left edges.

3. Sew together the right edge using a 1/2-inch seam. Sew together the left edge using a 1/2-inch seam. You now have a bag with the fold at the bottom, seams at the right and left and raw edges on the top around the opening.

4. Fold the top edge of the bag toward the outside, folding it down 1/2 inch. Pin all around this edge to hold the fold in place. Sew this fold in place, sewing near the fold.

5. Fold this same edge down again toward the outside, folding down 1 inch. Pin this edge down to secure it. Sew along the bottom of this fold, sewing along the first seam line that you just sewed. Begin sewing at one side seam, then stop sewing 2 inches before the next side seam. Clip the thread free, then pick up the sewing again at the second side seam and sew around the edge to a spot 2 inches before the first side seam. You will have made a casing with two openings in the seam.

6. Turn the bag right side out. Cut two pieces of cording, each 4 feet long. Slip the point of the safety pin into one end of a piece of cording. Run the pin through the casing that you made in the bag, beginning at the right side and ending at the left, pulling the cord along with it. Pull the end of the cording out about 1 foot, then undo the pin.

7. Secure the pin to the other piece of cording. Slide the pin into the same opening that you used the first time, but run this piece of cording around the other half of the bag casing. Pull the cording out about 1 foot and remove the pin. You now have a bag with a casing in the top. One cord runs through the front half of the casing and another cord runs through the back half.

8. Push down the button on a barrel lock toggle. This will cause the hole in the center of the toggle to open. Thread both right hand cord ends into this hole. Pull the toggle about 8 inches down the cord and let the button go. Tie an overhand knot in the end of each separate cord, to help prevent fraying. Add the other barrel lock toggle to the left hand cord ends in the same way.

9. Slide the bag into the sleeping bag to use it. In very warm weather, you may use only the bag if you wish, pulling the toggles to tighten the drawstring, which will help to keep out insects.

Tips & Warnings

• You can make this bag out of silk for extra luxury and durability, or from old sheets for a very frugal version.

References

• Gorp: Sleeping Bag Liners

Resources

• Seattle Fabrics: Barrel Lock Toggles