Blogging the Sweet Things in Life: Kitchen Wet Bags

What exactly is a kitchen wet bag, and why do I need one? I hear this all the time, or sometimes I just get "the look", you know the one that says, "ooooookaaaay" with their eyes. So here's a little history to how these came about way back in the day, and why they're such a great thing.

A kitchen wet bag is the alternative to this:

or this:

Or this:

Did I really just post my dirty laundry on the internet for the entire world to see? ouch.

When I began making kitchen wetbags back in 2008, we lived in a split level home. The kitchen, living room and master were on the top level, the kids rooms, bath and laundry was on the bottom. Inevitably a pile would develop at the top of the stairs next to the baby gate. It's true, I had our clothes baskets upstairs but I really did not want to mix dirty dish towels in with my clothing. I needed a better solution! I was already making big hanging wet bags for cloth diapers when a diaperswappers customer suggested shrinking the design for a kitchen application. Clearly I wasn't the only one with this dilemma.

my first bag at our old house, reserved as the backup now

my main bag (until last week) LOVE this print!

Our current house has a completely different layout. The laundry room is adjacent to the kitchen, but that really doesn't help the situation. I could gather up all the kitchen laundry for the day; wash cloth, dish towel, napkins and miscellaneous unpaper towels (my Mom would have unceremoniously called these "rags" back in the day) and take them to the laundry room. At that point I would either have to wash a small daily load in the extra big front loader which seems wasteful and redundant, seriously I have enough laundry already, or I could toss them in a laundry basket for my guests and I to look at every time someone tosses something in the garbage can. Thanks anyway. Instead I have a pretty wetbag hanging from my oven.

my new kitchen wet bag!

Who would even know it was filled with dirty laundry? It's big enough to hold probably 4-6 days worth. It makes a lot more sense then doing more laundry, or having an unsightly pile of wash cloths laying around.

random favorites over the years

The 411 on our wetbags

All the seams and zippers are serged for durability. I also top stitch around the high use areas for extra measure.
The inner lining is sewn separately, so wetness won't wick through to the outer layer. I do recommend letting your damp cloths air dry unless you know you will be doing laundry in the near future. The lining will keep moisture in, so you can safely put wet items in but you obviously don't want to keep them zipped up for a week in there. The lining also keeps odor in, yay! You won't have to worry about a dirty laundry smell in your kitchen.
Our zipper placement keeps the straps out of your way, unlike many other bags on the market
I use a specific process to finish the bottom of our bags so they don't need "re-stuffing" after washing. The inside lining of most wetbags will come inside out in the washer. While this is an even bigger pain when you're dealing with great big cloth diaper size bags, re-stuffing your wet bag is just one more thing you don't need to do while folding laundry.
They are easy to launder. You can wash and dry with them with rest of your kitchen laundry. Bleach will make them wear out faster (that goes for all your laundry, btw) so I personally like to add a few drops of Tea Tree Oil to my loads instead.

You can find our kitchen wet bags

and lots more at my ETSY shop or hyenacart