Stuff Sack Tutorial

We are planning a camping trip again and will be bringing along too much stuff.  In an effort to condense some stuff, I made these stuff sacks.

Last year I created these sleeping mat toppers that made sleeping in the tent quite nice.  They are cut from fluffy memory foam which takes up a lot of space.  I stored them in garbage bags, two to a bag.  I thought a stuff sack or even a compressible stuff sack would help out.

After looking at available products and considering some dry bags we already own, I created my own stuff sacks.  Fortunately I had all the materials I needed at home.  I started with PUL waterproof material, leftover from diaper making.  Another option would have been to use nylon.  The 1" buckles I had leftover from baby carrier making days.  For the strapping, I only had a small amount salvaged from something.

To test sizing, I tried out a half sized pillowcase I had made.  It was just right when I rolled the memory foam up.

Instructions:

Cut two 14"x 24" pieces of PUL
Cut two 2.75" one inch webbing
one 1" buckle
1" webbing or ribbon, 28" long

Stitch 1" ribbon/webbing along one short edge of each 14" x 24" piece of PUL.  Because PUL doesn't fray, I didn't finish the top edges

With right sides together, insert buckles and webbing into each side seam at top

 Stitch both sides and bottom edge

Pull out corners into triangle and sew in 1.5" to make box corners (Or it could be left square)

After boxing both lower corners, the bottom should look like this

Flip stuff sack right side out and top stitch where the webbing attaches to the side seam, this encloses the raw edges and gives it more stability.

Finished stuff sack

The memory foam topper folded and then rolled

Because I only had ribbon available for the top edges, I don't feel these have quite as much stability as if I had used webbing.  However the ribbon is much cheaper and what I had available.  The ribbon does keep the PUL from stretching.