I am so excited to finally be able to do this post because I think a lot of you are going to find it very useful! I had been looking for a great tutorial on how to do this, and the truth is that I just plain couldn’t find one. Either they were really confusing with not enough visuals, they had a lot of unnecessary steps, they didn’t actually cover the whole casserole dish or there were parts of it I just didn’t find visually appealing. So I set off to make a few adjustments, add things I liked and get rid of the clutter to come up with a great tutorial post on how to make this carrier that holds a 9″ x 13″ pyrex (or any other casserole dish that size). The best part is that it’s insulated so it will keep hot things hot and cold things cold while you transport it from your kitchen to another destination! 

Start off by choosing your fabrics. I wanted to do a patterned exterior fabric with a contrasting interior lining, but you can choose to do the same fabric for the inside and out. If you’re doing two different fabrics then you’ll need to buy 1 yard of your exterior fabric, 1 yard of your interior fabric and 1 yard of Insul-Bright. If you’re choosing to do the same fabric inside and out, just get 2 yards of that fabric and 1 yard of the Insul-Bright. You will also need 2.5 yards cotton belting for the straps and 20″ total of velcro.

For the exterior fabric: cut one 30″ x 17″ rectangle and one 40″ x 12″ rectangle. Repeat for the interior fabric and the Insul-Bright. If you’re using the same fabric for inside and out then cut two rectangles that are 30″ x 17″, two rectangles that are 40″ x 12″ and one of each size of the Insul-Bright. 

Working with fabrics cut in the same size, lay the exterior and interior fabrics together with their right sides facing and then place the Insul-bright on top of that and pin in place. You now have two rectangles, one which will cover the length of your casserole dish and one that will cover the width. Sew all the way around both rectangles with a 5/8″ seam allowance leaving about a 3″ gap along the bottom of each. This seam will not be seen so you can use any color thread you like. Press out the seams along the bottoms where the gaps are (this will help them lay perfectly flat so when you flip the rectangles right side out and topstitch you won’t be able to tell where these gaps where) and clip all corners. Flip both rectangles right side out, making sure to push out corners and press. Top stitch all the way around both rectangles. I chose a navy thread for this so that it would not show on the exterior but it would add a pop of color along the inside.

Using a zigzag stitch and thread of the same color, sew your strip of cotton belting together at the ends to form one continuous loop.

Lay the loop down like straps so that it’s parallel with the length of your wider rectangle. Adjust so that it’s centered (there’s equal length of strap on both sides) and the straps are equally spaced from each other. For mine, each strap was 4″ from the edge of the rectangle with a 5.5″ gap in between the two straps. Place your casserole dish in the center of the fabric and place pins on the straps at the side of the pyrex. This will indicate where to stop sewing.

Remove the dish and sew from pin to pin along both sides of both straps. This will attach the straps to the bottom of the dish. This part shows on the exterior but the stitching on the inside is covered up by the other rectangle so use a thread that matches the belting and you won’t even be able to see it! Lay your wider rectangle exterior side down and place the other rectangle on top of it so that it’s perpendicular. Make sure everything is exactly centered and then pin in place. You’re going to need to sew along all 4 edges to connect the pieces together. The easiest way to do this is to sew along the two lines in the top rectangle that are already there. Try as hard as you can to follow right along the original stitch to keep it looking neat.

Once those two seams are connected, flip the carrier over to follow the two seams on the wide rectangle. 

Your carrier is now assembled, all you have to do is add the velcro closures. The carrier closes by overlapping the ends of the long rectangle first so place your dish inside and pin a 4″ long piece of velcro to the exterior of one end. Pull the other end so that it’s snug and line up the matching 4″ piece of velcro to the interior.

Sew in place and then repeat for the wide rectangle, except here you’ll use two 6″ long pieces. Your carrier is now finished! To hold your casserole dish, just place inside then velcro together along the length like this:

And then velcro together along the width.

The straps will wrap around both sides and be all set to carry!

The interior of your carrier will look like this:

And the Exterior will look like this:

If you don’t sew, don’t have the time or simply don’t want to take on this project for yourself, I have made a carrier identical to this and have it for sale in my Etsy Shop! I will be adding more carriers in different patterns and colors in the next couple of weeks so keep an eye out for those!