Need a quick, easy gift sometime?  Several of my family members got these for Christmas. 

They are easy and quick.  And they cook baked potatoes like a dream in the microwave.  I will be making more in the future.  Including one for myself!

Some things to keep in mind.  Use only cotton materials for the entire bag.  That includes the fabric, the batting and the thread.  Polyester might melt or catch fire in the microwave.  And fires in the microwave just might ruin your day.  Melting will certainly ruin your potato.  Just sayin’.

I started with 9″ squares of fabric.  Two squares of muslin, two squares of batting and two squares of this fun potato fabric (or any fabric you like) for each potato bag.

Draw a circle on the muslin squares.  This is a handy way to make a circle.  Just cut out a rectangle of cardboard.  I save those pieces that come inside new calendars.  They are perfect for this technique!  Punch a small hole in one end of the rectangle and use your stiletto to hold the other end right in the middle of the fabric.  I fold the fabric twice to find the middle.  Then insert your marking pencil in the punched hole and twirl it around to draw the circle.  Works like a charm!  And you can make absolutely any size circle you want.  Even if the size you want is 8 7/32″ diameter.  Or some other obscure size.

Layer as follows:  100% cotton batting square, fun fabric square right side up (I used this potato chip fabric too), then muslin with the drawn circle up.

Pin to hold all the layers together as you sew.

Hand off the sandwich to the New Quilter in Town to stitch on the circle.  Ha!  If you don’t have a New Quilter in Town at your house, you’ll have to do the stitching yourself.  I highly recommend finding one of these quilters at your house to share in the Christmas project duties.  It was a fun day!

The NQIT can do the trimming after the circles are sewn too.  While you draw more circles and pin the next sandwiches to be stitched.  Potato Bag Sweat Shop here we come!  It’s good to have an assembly line when making multiple anythings.

We chose to not sew the circles all the way around and use that opening for then turning the circles right side out.  You could also sew all the way around and then cut a small slit just inside the stitching line for turning.  Either way works.

Turn inside out.  Actually it’s right side out.  And inside in.  Or wrong side in.  You get the picture.

I use my purple thang to smooth all the edges so it’s a perfect circle.  It’s a wonderful thing, that purple thang.  Or does that make it a wonderful thang?  And it’s only a perfect circle if NQIT sewed exactly on the drawn circle.  Which my NQIT had done.  Perfectly.  It’s a good thing.  Or a good thang.  And I refuse to share my NQIT.  Don’t even ask.

Press the circle on both sides with your iron after turning.

Layer two completed circle sandwiches together and pin to hold in place.  Stitch around (backstitching at beginning and end) leaving a fairly large open end for the potato to slide in.  Turn right side out again.  I then topstitched around so that there wasn’t any exposed batting anywhere.  The slit or opening is then caught within the stitching inside the bag and the bag can be thrown in the wash without worry of anything fraying or unraveling.

They work for warming tortillas too!  You just have to fold the tortillas in half to slide them in the opening.

After you slide them in, it’s easy to reach inside the bag and unfold them so they lay flat inside.  And they warm perfectly in only about 20 seconds in the microwave.  And are nice and moist too.  Yum!

Just slide a potato in the bag (washed and dried, but not pricked!) and microwave for 3-6 minutes.  Time will depend on the size of the potato and your microwave.  You’ll have to experiment.  And I also read on one site that you should wrap the potato in a paper towel before inserting into the bag to cook, but I’ve never done that.  Your choice.

Enjoy!
Barb