Sewing Project - Bespoke Casserole Carrier

I brought my sister some fabric that came my way both at the ReUse Ctr and from the quilting group.  She offered to make me a casserole carrier.  She was planning a zippered one but had not worked out the details. I thought a less bulky zippered one is what I would like so we set out together to design one.  She had this nice navy embroidered fabric and we found some yellow fabric that matched the stitching quite well.

I had brought one of my casseroles to ensure that it fit nicely. 

This photo is of the carrier closed the the handles folded on top.

She paired the navy embroidery fabric with some navy cotton fabric for the inside.  We cut the navy layers based on the casserole and rounded the corners. Then we sandwiched fiberfill in between these 2 layers, sewed all the way around and turned it right side out.

We checked again to see if it was going to be big enough.  We had planned for a band of yellow for the height of the carrier. 

We used the same method I used for my bespoke tote for the adding the zippers to the side band.  You can find this tutorial here. We found 2 yellow zippers in her stash. We decided to make the zippers go around the carrier to the left and to the right. We planned to have the side band be 4" tall but it ended up being a bit taller than that at almost 5 inches.

The carrier features tabs to open the carrier, to close the zippers, handles.

The blue tabs are at the back of the carrier and help when one is closing the carrier.  They had to be sewn directly to the zipper.

The yellow tabs are in the front where the zippers meet and there is one for the left zipper and one for the left zipper to help with the opening of the carrier.

The handles are long enough to accommodate several containers and are centrally located to allow the container to be balanced in the carrier.

I thought it would be a good idea to have something stiff in the bottom of the carrier so I searched my stash of wood and found a piece of plywood 8 inches square.  That will do nicely.

My sister donated from Mom's stash a piece of blue anti slip material in Mom's favorite color.  I wrapped it around the wood board and voila it works out perfectly.

Now, the dish will stay in the center of the carrier and will not slide around.

Really happy to have reused materials.

The carrier with my beautiful yellow casserole by Kitchen Aid.  It was a gift from a friend for my birthday years ago.

That seems to be a good fit.

This casserole measures 11 inches handle to handle and does have a lid with a knob which means the height needs to be accommodated but we measured for that.

And here it is ready to take a dish to a potluck, picnic, a family get together and party with friends.

It works so well.  

And because I had my casserole it is just the right size.  I really like the zippers which will keep all the stuff inside.  The handles will go a long way to keeping the dish level and help to avoid spills.

Of course, being navy it should handle any spills well.  It is easy to wash with all the fabric cotton.

I have 3 other containers that this carrier will handle. 

This is my non stick blue casserole dish which measures 12 inches across the handles.  It does not have a lid so parchment will ensure that the top of the carrier does not touch the food in the dish. 

Here's the carrier with Mom's bean pot which I use for soup.  Not sure I would carry it with soup in it but it could be cabbage rolls or some dish like that.

It has a lid with a bit of a knob on the top but it is taller that the other dishes but only measures 10 inches handle to handle so that helps to accommodate the additional height.

And not to be out done with hot dishes it can also carry my Tupperware mixing bowl.

It could hold fruit, salad, dessert, and very much more.

This carrier will come in very handy when taking food on the road.

Thanks so much sister for the joint project.

It turned out wonderfully.