Reusable "tissues" and baby wipes

Fall is upon us, and so is flu and cold season. I have decided to make some reusable tissues for my home. I never remember to buy tissues, and using TP just makes the nose too raw. I got the idea to do this after looking at my little girl's baby wipes. They are soft, durable and wash well. The baby wipes are almost 2 years old and still work as well as day one. Of course the idea of the handkerchief is hundreds of years old, but this project is more along the line of use it and toss it (into the laundry), so you don't have a snot rag in your pocket all day.

What you will need:
Flannel fabric: any color or pattern you, and as much as you want, to make as many tissues you want.
Thread to match or contrast
Sewing machine or Serger
Scissors/ pinking sheers or rotary cutter (with matt)
Ruler

Pre-wash  all fabric to accommodate for shrinking and so you can go right to using these once you are done sewing.
My tissues are 6x6 in. If you want to measure a standard tissue or do other dimensions that is you choice. Cut your flannel to size, as many as you think you will need. If you don't have a serger or a sewing machine that does a edge stitch, I suggest you use the pinking sheers.

 This one is pinked. The pinking will fray, but the stitching will keep it together.

Now, sew around each tissue close to the pinking, or very near the edge if you did straight cutting.

 You can see the difference between straight edge and pinked.

With the pinked edge tissues, you can use any kind of stitch you want around the edge. Here you can see a couple I have done.

Here are a couple of wipes and as you can see the bottom one has frayed a little bit, but I still use it. The top one I edged better and it holds together great, even after almost 2 year of being washed 2 times a week.

 Here you can see that after a lot of use, they do fade, but the fabric is still soft and holds great.











I just used an old baby wipes container for my cloth wipes. After I use a wipe, it gets tossed in the the diaper laundry. Note: the wipes are cut to a different sized than the tissues (about 6x9in), but the process is all the same.

For my tissues, I used this tin canister. I like to stack mine one by one in the tin, but if you don't care, they can go in crumpled too. I suggest that you get a mesh bag (like you would use for socks) to put the used tissues into, that way you don't have to sort them from your regular laundry. Wouldn't want to got to work with a flannel tissue stuck to your arm pit.








So go out to your favorite fabric store and get some flannel (hit the discount remnant shelf first to try to save some money) and get to sewing. Make some in different colors for each member of the family or make larger ones for clean up rags. You will find that not buying tissues all the time, will save you some time and money. Enjoy this project. ~Kit~