This water bottle carrier was inspired when I found myself carrying everyone’s water in my backpack for the 4th of July parade. Next time, everyone carries their own! This is my first tutorial so please feel free to send me corrections or comments on how to make it better.
1. Cutting Instructions
Cut one piece of fabric for the exterior and one piece for the interior each 10 3/4 wide x 8 inches tall. I’ve pieced my exterior fabric with two coordinating prints in the tutorial pictures.
Cut 2 circles of your lining fabric, the circle should have a 3 3/4 inch diameter. The diameter of the circle stitching line is 3 inches. Add an additional 3/8 inch seam allowance making the cut circle diameter 3 3/4 inches.
Cut one piece of Insul-Brite 9 x 7 inches. Cut one Insul-Brite circle with a diameter of 3 inches.
For strap, cut one length of twill tape and one length of ribbon, both 42 inches long. This fits my 8 and 11 year old daughters. When I sized it for myself I cut it 50 inches long.
2. Sew exterior to lining along the top edge only, right sides together using a 3/8 inch seam.
3. Press open seam.
4. The Insul-Brite is going to get sandwiched between the exterior and the lining. Pin Insul-Brite to the wrong side of exterior fabric, aligning and centering top of batting with the joined seam line. Pin in place about an inch down to keep batting from sliding around. Fold over the the lining fabric and pin some more. Top stitch 1/4 inch along the top edge. This provides a baseline anchoring of the batting.
5. Pin entire sandwich like a quilt, securing as needed to keep layers from puckering when stitched. Stitch all layers as you please. Repeat this for the bottom circle. Finish bottom edge of top and edges of circle with a zigzag stitch or serger.
6. I used a French seam to join the side edges of the carrier. A French seam is two steps which result in the raw edge being trapped inside the second seam. Use some scraps and do a practice seam if this is the first time trying this. This seam is great for fairy skirts too!
Step One: Pin WRONG sides of sides together and stitch a 1/4 inch seam. Don’t press seam open, you want them to lay flat together.
Step Two: Turn tube wrong side out. Pin again along the edge, RIGHT sides together and stitch a 3/8 inch seam. This seam will ‘trap’ the previous seam inside. This gives you a nice clean finished edge for the inside of your carrier.
7. Leave tube with lining turned to the outside. Pin bottom circle to tube’s raw edge, right sides together. Clip edges of the tube to make fitting easier. Only clip about 1/4 inch into seamline.
8. Stitch using a 3/8 inch seam.
9. Turn carrier right side out.
10. Attach twill tape to ribbon with a single stitch down the center.
11. Turn up 1 inch of strap raw edge and attach to inside edge of tube, centering ends on either side of the carrier side seam. (After making this I think it would have been easier to attach the strap before creating the tube.)
12. Enjoy watching your kids carry their own water bottle.
Tips:
This carrier fits a small 500 mL bottle of water. I used a Crystal Geyser bottle that was 8 inches around. The finished tube is 9 inches in circumference and 7 1/4 inches tall.
The formula for sizing the diameter of the bottom circle is: the circumference of the circle divided by 3.14 (or pi). The circumference is measured by laying the top part of your bag flat, measuring the opening from one side to the other and then doubling. I usually round up the result of the formula just to keep things simple and add for a little shrinkage that will occur when the circle is quilted. I then add a 3/8 inch seam allowance or a total of 3/4 inch to the diameter measurement. In this example, a 9 inch circumference divided by 3.14 = 2.866, I rounded to 3 inches and added 3/4 of an inch for the total seam allowance.
Insul-Brite is a thin batting with a thin layer of foil. It will hold in heat or cold. If using it for potholders it’s recommended to use two additional layers of regular batting. I purchased mine at JoAnns.
Go to Whip Up and see all the other fabulous entries for this round of the Whip Lash Challenge. My entry is for the Tutorial category.
[...] Water Bottle Carrier [...]
[...] Water Bottle Carrier [...]
I made one last night for my brother-in-law. Used blues and browns. I think he’ll really like it. Thank you so much for the easy tutorial and idea!
Thank you again!
This is the link to the one I made…
http://stuckangel.blogspot.com/2008/12/my-personal-christmas-roundup.html
[...] Bottle warmer, very cute! [...]
thanks !!!
Thanks for your great tutorial! I’ve only just started sewing, and found you instructions really thorough. If you’d like to see my finished water bottle carrier, it’s on my blog:
http://menabilly.blogspot.com/2009/01/water-bottle-carrier.html
What a lovely tutorial
thank you for sharing.
I hope it´s ok that I link to it from my blog?
I love your site!
i love this idea! thanks for the tutorial!!
I absolutely loved this tutorial. Very Clear and Simple and easy to understand. Thank you!
I linked to your tutorial on my blog. ;o)
wanted to say thank you SO much!! this will definately be used!
my question is what size water bottle do you carry in this?
Thanks for this great tutorial. I am in the final stages of creating one for my daughter and another for my son. I had a bit of trouble sewing the base on – I ended up unpicking it and starting again. I think I tried to sew round the underneath the first time. I put the water bottle in the carrier when pinning the second base on, which definitely made it easier. I now have two happy children who can carry their own water!
Thanks for this great tutorial. I am in the final stages of making one for my daughter and another for my son. I had a bit of trouble sewing the base on – I had to unpick my first attempt. I think I sewed from underneath the base. I put the water bottle inside the carrier when pinning the second base on and that made it a lot easier. I now have two very happy children who can carry their own water!
I read your website every week, its great and got lots of information to take in and lots of interesting articles.
I found your site long ago as it was posted on one of my quilt groups, I saved the link and finally had a reason to make some. We are taking two grand kids to Sea World and so I won’t have to carry the kids bottles whipped up three, two for grand daughters, and one for me. They are 5 & 10 so adjusted the strap size for them. I’m going to leave mine in my bag. My hubby saw them and said make a belt loop on mine. Hmmm, I hadn’t planned on making him one
but now he also has one. I posted a pic on my blog if you want to take a peek.
Thank you!
I also put a link on my blog to your tutorial, I forgot to tell you that!
I have maded 3 so far for gifts for my nieces and my son’s good friend. My son really wants his own… going to use a CARS fabric I purchased at Joann’s. Will make more in a larger size for friends with reusable water bottles. Thanks for sharing this great idea!
Hi! Thanks for sharing this great pattern. I know it’s been a few years but I recently discovered it and made these water bottle carriers for teachers’ and mother’s day gifts. They were a big hit! Thanks! I posted pics on my blog and a link to your site.
Truly,
Erica
I love it!! Perfect gift to my daughter for her first day to school!!
Hi! Thanks for the tutorial. I did one for a friend. You can peek it here:
http://blogdesandramaria.blogspot.com/2009/12/water-bottle-cover.html
Just made this, it’s a nice, quick gift though if I’d spent a bit more time on it instead of being in an infernal rush to get to bed I would have done a better job on the bottom, which puckers a bit. No matter…
A question. We don’t seem to have thermaBrite in Australia. the closest I could get at my Spotlight store was something called Thermal fleece. Yours looks like it’s crinkly – this stuff isn’t. And only one side is reflective. I took a punt and had the foil side facing the interior of the carrier.
Anyone have any thoughts/ substitutes for this product?
Thank you so much Miz Pink Chalk for offering this tute. Very generous.
Hmmmm….
[...] What: Water Bottle Carrier Sewing Tutorial [...]
This is soooo cute, I just made one for my son, and it only took about an hour to do this. I am going to make more for my family for Zoo trips and Camping for when we hike. Great Tutorial and Thank you so much for sharing!
– as for substitutes, I used some thick fleece instead of the insul-bright. It works almost the same but may not keep the drink as cold.
I’m glad you enjoyed making the pattern Caz!
[...] How To Make A Water Bottle Carrier: This carrier fits a small 500 mL bottle of water. I used a Crystal Geyser bottle that was 8 inches around. The finished tube is 9 inches in circumference and 7 1/4 inches tall. [...]
This is so cute. I love it.
ADORABLE
[...] How to make a water bottle carrier here [...]
Peço permissão para colocar um link em meu blog de seu tutorial:Water Bottle Carrier
Thanks for such a great pattern! I made it last night and it was a cinch! Great job with your explanations, and the pictures really helped. Thanks!
This is really great! To make it even better, I would suggest sewing something into the material to keep the water bottle cold. Like how you can put rice in some material and make a heating pad…there has to be some way to do this with cold, where you could sew something in the carrier then put the carrier in the freezer or something. I wish I could suggest HOW to do this, but I can sadly only suggest THAT you do it.
Katehy, This tutorial is just wonderful! Such a great idea–I’m planning on making one to hang from my car headrest for easy access! In thinking about Callie’s suggestion for keeping the water cool: 1)It’s for sure a great idea to simply pre-freeze bottled water the night before. I do that for mini-road trips using my own purified water and a reusable vessel…and it’s so nice not to have to stop to purchase water! 2)What about those little ‘blue ice’ thingies they give you when you’ve had a day- or office-surgery. If you could get your hands on a few of those they could fit nicely into a kind of sleeve that would surround the bottle. And that would be nice not to have to wait for the water to melt! Just some thoughts. Now I gotta go get a drink of water after all this talk about cool fresh water! Katie Lynne in Astoria
Several things: we used this at the barn while riding. We put several bottles with 1/3 water and froze them. Takes a bit to thraw and maybe quilted fabric would help too. We also made head bands and they had beads that would freeze. Only thing Deb did not say where they came from. Kinda like the bunny hop!
You can buy those ice packs that when you open them and press them become cold. This would help a bit.
It would sure be nice if this was in a PDF.
This is the greatest Tutorial. I have made at least 6 of these. My sister and I took them to Europe and were just thrilled with them. We had water to keep us hydrated and our hands free for picture taking. Thank you so much. I posted a picture of my latest one on my blog.
Hi,
Thanks for the great pattern, I made them for Mother’s day for the women I work with and then decided
to make 12 of them for the kids in class.
It was my donation to the teacher as I won’t be there next year we take the students into the community alot, to teach them safety, street signs etc. I work in a class for Exceptinal Education.
Sorry I got long winded, Thanks again for the Pattern I love it.
Pam
Great ideia! Tks for the tutorial… kiss
love the water bottle carrier !!! i did a little experiment on it and instead of the long carry strap —i weaved a piece of cord that matched –through the top piece to make a drawstreing –leaving enough cord for a carry strap !! worked great–also make a couple for ”baby bottle holders ” thank u for the tute !!!!
Cheryl
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[...] pattern for making your own water bottle carrier, so you can sling a bottle of water over your shoulder when you’re on the [...]
I was surfing the web for a water bottle pattern and your website came up. This is a wonderful tutorial. Thanks for sharing your great ideas. I can’t wait to make this with the many scraps of fabric I have.
[...] Water Bottle Carrier [...]
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Just wanted to let you know that I am going to feature this tutorial in my Minute with Molly newsletter that will be published on Monday August 16th.
There will be a link back to your website and everything, so if you notice a huge increase in your traffic on that day, that is why!
Blessings,
Molly Green
Econobusters.com
This is awesome and so cute! Much thanks for posting such great, detailed instructions!!!
Just found this tutorial. I just have to make this. Great idea. I have been crocheting them but I like this one much better. Thanks.
Made a pile of them today!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=15426&l=65c83ebd46&id=107270425980784
[...] 6. A water bottle carrier from Kathy (I made a bunch of these this summer and love them!): http://pinkchalkstudio.com/blog/2006/07/10/whiplash-challenge-water-bottle-carrier/ [...]
Thank you so much for sharing this pattern. We lost our water bottler carrier last year at Disneyworld and have since been needing a new one. This is perfect. I’ll make an extra one just in case.
Hi i am looking for apattern for a 5 gallon water bottle cover quilted If you have one please e-mail me and tell me the price for the pattern thanks Dolores
OLA AMIGA AMEI A IDEIA MUITO BONITA E PRATICA MEUS PARABENS. BEIJOS EMILIA
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