How to Make Snack Taxis

Fabric Snack Taxis are a great way carry fruits wedges, veggie slices, nuts, seeds, cookies, and chips without resorting to plastic baggies. With a food-safe lining, they offer a washable and easily re-usable alternative to Ziploc and other less environmentally-friendly baggie options. 

• A Sewing Machine
• Quilting Fabric (A third of a yard or quarter of a metre)
• Matching Thread
• Food-Safe Lining Fabric   
• Fabric Scissors or a Rotary Cutter
• A 7 inch/18 cm Zipper
• A Quilting Ruler
• A Fabric Cutting Mat
• A Quilting Needle (size 90/14) for medium-weight fabrics
• A Handful of Sewing Pins
• A Seam Ripper (Just in Case!)

Choose a cotton quilting fabric that you love (or a scrap of cotton fabric from your stash that you’d like to use up) for the outside of your snack baggie. Make sure the cotton fabric has been washed and dried in order to fully shrink it before beginning the project. 

Choose a food-safe waterproof fabric for the interior lining. I use ProCare® fabric for a safe and easily wipe-able/washable option. This fabric will not shrink so it does not need to be pre-washed. 

Cut the exterior cotton fabric precisely into an 8 x 13 inch (20 x 33 cm) rectangle. Next, cut the interior lining the same size or slightly shorter to an 8 x 12.5 inch (20 x 32 cm) rectangle. 

Please note: It is easiest to get an exact cut with a quilting ruler and a rotary cutter. However, you can get satisfactory results by cutting a piece of paper the correct rectangular size(s) and pinning it as a pattern to each fabric. Use fabric scissors to cut each fabric to the pattern size. 

Using a basic zigzag stitch, overcast the 4 edges of the exterior quilting fabric to prevent unraveling or fraying edges. 

Using pins, attach the 8 inch/20 cm end of both fabrics to the top of the zipper as follows: 

• the wrong side of the exterior fabric on the top;
• the right side of the interior lining at the bottom; 
• the right side of the zipper between the two fabrics. 

Sew across the two fabrics and the top of the zipper using a straight stitch. The fabrics can also be doubly secured to the zipper with a top stitch on the right side of the cotton fabric along the zipper. This step is optional. 

If the fabrics are spread out at this stage, the right side of the exterior cotton fabric will be attached to the top side of the zipper and the right side of the interior food-safe fabric will be sewn to the bottom side of the zipper. 

Next, fold the exterior cotton fabric and the food-safe lining fabric in half with the right sides facing in. 

Attach the loose 8 inch/20 cm end of the fabrics to the other side of the zipper length with pins and sew. 

Both sides of the material should now be attached to the zipper—wrong sides facing out. The exterior cotton fabric will look as though it’s folded in half on one side of the zipper and the interior food-safe lining will look as though it’s folded in half on the other side of the zipper. The zipper will be hidden from view between the two fabrics.

However, once you turn the exterior fabric right side out, it will spoon the food safe lining and reveal the zipper on the outside. Great job! This means you’re halfway done! 

At this stage, you will want to top stitch the right side of the cotton fabric along the other side of the zipper if you did so on the other side so that both sides match. To do this, you will need to move the zipper slider to the other end of the zipper so it’s all the way open. Otherwise, it will be very difficult to get at only one layer of material to top-stitch. Again, top stitching is completely optional. It will not affect the performance of the snack taxi. 

Now you’re ready to sew up the sides. Turn the exterior cotton fabric inside out again (hiding the zipper) and fold the cotton fabric and food-safe lining in half, this time with the zipper about 1 inch/3 cm from the top. Ensure that the two fabrics are directly on top of each other and that the sides line up. Pin down one side to prepare for sewing. Then ease the zipper slider inwards about 2-3 inches (6-9 cm). This gap or opening will prove important later on, so make sure to do it! 

Note: In the image I’ve included two snack taxis at this stage to show how things look from both sides. One one side, the exterior cotton fabric is folded together. On the other side, the lining is folded together.

Sew up the first side fully. For extra strength, also use a zigzag stitch to overcast the side. Cut the zipper ends off with a pair of scissors or pinking shears so that it is flush with the side. 

Next, pin the other side and sew three quarters of the way along the side, starting on the zipper end.    

Turn over the baggie so the interior side is facing you and fold the interior side up from where the seam ended and pin. Then sew the cotton exterior the rest of the way along the seam to the bottom. (Note: It may prove easier to start from the bottom and sew the cotton exterior up to the point where the earlier seam ended so the full side seam is now complete). 

Either way, the cotton exterior should end up with a side seam from top to bottom, while the interior food-safe lining should have a hole three quarters of the way down.   

Using that hole that was left in the interior fabric, turn the baggie right side out. This is done by shoving all the fabric through the hole little by little until the full interior of the baggie is revealed.  

Using that nice opening that was left in the zipper, you can unzip the baggie further and work the material flat (though, as the picture reveals, the fabric may be a bit wrinkled at this stage).  

To sew up the hole in the interior lining that was used to push the material through to complete the snack taxi: (a) push the exterior lining completely away from the hole so you only sew the interior fabric and don’t accidentally sew the exterior cotton as well, and (b) fold in the edges so that they line up flush with the seam. If a pin is helpful here, by all means use one!

Once the hole is sewn up, the interior of the snack taxi is complete and ready to hold both dry snacks (like crackers and cookies) or moist snacks 

(like apple wedges or cucumber slices). 

Last but not least, turn the whole baggie so the exterior side is out and the food-safe lining is inside by opening the zipper. If the baggie is quite wrinkled from all that turning, then iron gently on a low setting, so as not to melt the interior fabric. 

Voila! Congratulations! You have completed a fantastic and fully-functional snack taxi to take with you on your travels. 

Make another one a little bit bigger and you'll have a sandwich taxi too!