Looking for ways to eliminate plastic wrap in your kitchen? Well, you can start by making yourself and your family a handful of these cute bowl bonnet covers. These covers are relatively easy and don’t take a lot of materials to make. All you need is fat quarter fabric, 1/4″ braided elastic band, sewing thread, and a sewing machine.
Prepare your covers
Before you start anything, go through your kitchen. Look at all the bowls and casserole dishes that could use a cloth cover. When I went through my cabinets, I realized all my bowls, including my Kitchen Aid mixer bowl, needed a cover. My casserole dishes already come with a plastic sealable lid except for one that I use for lasagnas.
Don’t let shapes of your kitchen dishes to deter you. My casserole dish is in a rectangle and is just as easy, if not easier, as sewing up a round bowl shape. Handles also shouldn’t deter you. The handle on my mixer bowl never gets in the way of the bowl cover. The bonnet style gives a lot of giving and leeway.
Next will be to gather all your fabric. You can use pretty fat quarter pattern fabric pieces or any fabric you have on hand that fits the sizes of bowls and dishes you want to cover. To keep them straight, one idea would be to have all your bowl bonnet covers in one color or design and your casserole dishes in another.
Sew up your covers
Now that you have all your kitchen bowls, dishes, and fabrics, it is time to get started.
Wash and dry all fabric prepared to use.
Measure each bowl or dish upside down on the wrong side of the fabric.
Without moving the item, measure and mark 2 inches out from the bowl or casserole dish.
Cut out all the circle patterns that you have now made and discard the leftover fabric.
Option: iron any fabric with large creases.
Using an overcasting stitch, sew the edges of all the cut fabrics. This will help to reduce or stop the fabric from fraying when washed.
Measure 1″ around from the edge of the cut pieces of fabric. Use pins to mark this line. You will be sewing the elastic along this line.
Measure the 1/4″ braided elastic band for each cut fabric. To do this first measure out the circumference of the pinned sew line. Then divide this measurement in half and subtract about 3-5 more inches. This number is the amount of elastic needed for that particular piece of fabric.
Pin the start of the elastic to the start of the pinned sew line.
The best stitch to use for this step is a zigzag made for stretching fabrics.
Sew the first 1/4 to 1/2 inch of the elastic to get started. Then pull the elastic as far as you can toward you while you pull the back of the fabric with your other hand. This can be a bit tricky but you will get the hang of it. I got pretty good at it on my second bonnet. Make sure you pull the elastic toward you as tight as you can. This gives you a great stretch when you are finished.
These bowl bonnets are perfect. They are completely washable. Because these covers are cloth, I don’t mound the bowls with food. If I did, then the cover would be soaking up the liquids. I don’t want that. If you prefer, you can use the oilcloth on the underside so it will be easier to clean and won’t soak up the food or liquids.
