Babies and wedding some in waves and I am in a baby wave right now. I am not having my own baby, just to be very clear. Friends are in baby producing mode, however. I have made a few quilts for friends, but am, frankly, too lazy for the most part.

I do make receiving blankets quite frequently. They are much more useful than quilts and people seem less reluctant to use them or save them for a special day. I thought I had written about them before, but I guess not. I searched and only saw mentions

Lily Blankets

Mostly I made receiving blankets, which can be used for all sorts of useful baby things such as:

Superman (or girl) cape

sunshade

nursing cover

layer for warmth

tent

playmat

wings

changing pad

burp cover

etc

Ayden Blankets

I fold over a double hem and stitch with fun thread and a decorative stitch. Often I will leave the selvedge on so as not to have to hem yet another side. The decorative stitch takes awhile, so it is better for me to do as little hemming as possible. If these were going to another sewist or quiltmaker, I might rethink that strategy, but mostly they go to people who are not crafty.

Baby Gift Bags

Finally, I don’t usually give gift bags to people who don’t give them back or re-use them. This time, I really didn’t feel like dealing with any paper or tape or anything. I sincerely dislike wrapping gifts with paper, so I pulled some fabric off the ‘back art’ shelf and made two bags. I don’t really like the background color of the fabric. Don’t ask me why I bought it – the cherries, probably. I like the bags, though and perhaps it will encourage more people to make fabric gift bags they can re-use.

Mini Gift

I got the directions for making this little bag, just with folding an sewing from Maeda Trading Company at PIQF 2009.

They sold squares of fabric so you could make this little bag right away. Of course, a person could also use their own fabric with no problem.

Mine looks a little weird, because I didn’t have enough of the right ribbon to make this work. I thought about using these types of bags as another kind fo gift bag.

My sister asked me to make her a cute bag to carry her retainer around in. I thought she was being totally revolting at first, but she showed me that the retainer has a case.

This is kind of the gift bag pattern, but I lined it using the same technique as the tote bags, because I wanted to see how lining the gift bags would work. It turned out to be too small for her purposes, but it was a good learning experience.

Lessons:

1. Measure
2. For a bag this small use thinner lining fabric
3. Make the main part of the bag the size of the object that will go into it, then add on the measurements for the ribbon and the piece above the ribbon.

At least she likes the fabric, which is good since I am making her a tote bag out of the same fabric. I have the correct measurements and will make another one to send to her.

I am a lucky girl! I have such nice friends who give me presents sometimes.

First, I got a gift certificate for some fabric. Above is what I bought. Dots, of course, but also some of Mark Lipinski’s Califon line. I like the delicate designs. Not sure how I will use it, but something will come up. Now I can rest assured that the FOTY 2009 quilt will have some fabric in it. Thgift certificate came from TFQ for Christmas and the fabric just arrived today. I still owe her a thank you note.

How do you like this gift bag? The bottom has something slightly stiff in it, so it stands nicely up to attention. It is made out of felt, so I may be able to make lovely designs with embroidery (using my machine’s embroidery function) on the front instead of the applique’. The blanket stitch can be done on the machine as well. I’ll have to try it. One thing I like about it is the cute size.

This little teapot pincushion was in the gift bag. My friend, Leah, gave both to me. We hadn’t seen each other for a long time and when we got together, she produced this little package for me. It is a very sweet treat, and unexpected.

I have been transferring my pincushion between sewing machine and ironing board, so this came at the right time and, perhaps, I can start thinking about just keeping one near each workstation? I am definitely going to have to buy more pins!

I got a surprise on Thursday! Kristen and Mrs. Kristen sent me a dotted package filled with fabrics and gift bags. I was so thrilled and it was just the pick-me-up I needed.

I saw this sunflower fabric on Kristen’s blog and asked her to get me some earlier this year. I never saw it and know that she is really busy, but was so pleased to see it come to live with me.

The dots, of course, will come in very handy.

While they were at it, they worked on some gift bags for me. Aren’t they pretty? They have little cuffs on them, which is wonderful and different from mine. I am so pleased to add them to my collection. I am also pleased that the gift bags phenomenon is spreading. Hope you will make some, too!

They put it all in a gift box covered with dots, which made me happy even before I opened the package. Thanks, ladies!

Last year, Mary-Jeanine and I exchanged emails about gift bags. She had already put her Christmas ornaments away when we had the conversation, but she promised to send me one of her bags this year. I also sent her one of mine.

Mary-Jeanine’s are about the same size and proportion as mine. I am sure hers vary depending on the size of the gift, though.

She serges the inside of her bags, which, I am sure, makes the construction go a lot faster.

M-J also does a little different closure construction. She puts a grommet in on each side and makes a casing, so the wrapper can pull the top tight

I really like seeing different takes on these gift bags, especially on the closures.

Thanks for sharing Mary-Jeanine!

Linda and Laura Kemshall are quilt artists extraordinaire. I love their Thr3fold Journal and the straightforwardness (is that a word??) and artistry with which they present their projects. They have come out with a new gift bag pattern via Quilting Arts. I looked at the pattern and it is kind of a backwards bag. What I mean by that is that you create, paint, embellish, bead and torture your fabric THEN you make the bag out of it. I can see where this pattern would work for stuff you already had around the house or for test techniques that you didn’t want laying around after you were done testing. These bags look pretty complicated, however. Please note that I haven’t made one, but I am very much a fan of he 10 bags an hour method. Let me know if you make one of these bags and how it turns out. I’ll be happy to post your photo to my blog or link to your blog etc from Artquiltmaker blog.

When you have lemons, make lemonade.
As you know, the machine is gone and I can’t work on the Pineapples (Well, I suppose I could, but I want to be sure all of the problems are consistent by using the same machine). I have a Janome Jem, which I have only used a handful of times, so I have formulated a list of other things I can work on while giving the Jem a little workout. Here it is:

• 6 baby blankets: three friends/colleagues are having babies-2 each
• Binding for Sharon’s quilt.
• Binding for Serendipity Puzzle.
• Gift bags: I have lots of fabric for bags, and Christmas is coming.
• Cut out fabric for test blocks. I am going to start looking at new machines soon and I want to have some piecing in my own fabrics, which I can use to test the machines.
• Wash and press new fabric.
• Replenish Pineapple strips.

I also have a lot of hand work, which I can now work on since the thimble came back from vacation:

• Pamela’s self portrait from June 2006
• Pamela’s garden from June 2006
• Pamela’s house and garden from May 2007
• Kissy Fish

So now I am going to get off my duff (computer) and start some of these projects.

One good thing about the machine being gone is that I could get a good picture of the Pineapple blocks.

Laume, one of my five readers, she of Beach Treasure Blog, wrote in the comment box:

This whole gift bag thing – I’m on the fence with it. On the plus side, the gift bags in the photos are so adorable I want won for ME! On the negative, even though it takes an insane amount of time, I do like so many things about wrapping paper. I like wrapping gifts. I get bored with the same paper year after year though, so wouldn’t fabric bags be even worse! But they would be traditional and I tend to get attached to all things traditional.
For a number of years I’ve had an insane amount of wrapping paper and ribbons and things-you-can-stick-on-packages to use up. Some I bought during my years of being addicted to after holiday shopping binges, some from my mom who gave me all her shopping binge excess when she moved. I’ve made a commitment to use it all up as best I can. I’m really excited because I’m almost completely out of wrapping paper this year and I don’t want to buy any new so I can start fresh with any idea or theme I want next year. I have whittled my box of ribbons and stuff down to half a box, still have lots of that. And don’t even ask me about my entire BOX of boxes of Yule cards – sigh. I might start giving those to my kids.
It does occur to me though that I’m always at a loss for the proper sized boxes for small items. Maybe making up some of this gift bags for smaller items would be a good thing.
What do you do if it’s a fragile item? Put it in a box and then in a bag?

Oh,and P.S. – because I obviously didn’t write enough in my first comment! – I also love the way the wrapping paper entertains my cats. They love “helping” me wrap. They love sitting and leaping from the piles of wrapped packages. They treat them like perches. I suspect that gift BAGS would be treated more like cat beds and would be all fuzzy and cat hair decorated by the time I handed them to their recipients. But most fun of all, I love how the orgy of unwrapping creates an entire room awash in boxes and paper and ribbons and my cats dive and swim and tunney in the great big sea of paper. I believe my cats wait in anticipation ALL YEAR for that one glorious night of wrapping paper bliss.

The extent of Laume’s comments demand that I write another whole blog post about gift bags. So, I will answer each of Laume’s section in order, unless I don’t feel like it:

1. This whole gift bag thing – I’m on the fence with it. On the plus side, the gift bags in the photos are so adorable I want won for ME! On the negative, even though it takes an insane amount of time, I do like so many things about wrapping paper. I like wrapping gifts. I get bored with the same paper year after year though, so wouldn’t fabric bags be even worse! But they would be traditional and I tend to get attached to all things traditional.

We use mostly gift bags, when they aren’t in storage, but we can’t get away from wrapping paper. Our wrapping paper does tend to last for a long time since we only use it for people we don’t think will get the gift bag thing.

We now have about 10 years worth of bags and I can’t remember all the fabric I used until I see it. My SIL commented that she had wrapped something in a bag I made in 1996. She wasn’t even in the picture then! I love that history aspect.

It is also great to use fabric that you don’t want to cut up, because you get to see it in all of is glory over and over. Also, I have no intention of making a Christmas quilt and there are so many wonderful Christmas fabrics that gift bags are a great excuse to buy cool Christmas fabric. Every year I make new bags to spice up the array of bags and use up more fabrics.

Of course, you can also make gift bags for other holidays and events and use up those large conversationals that you love, but will never use for a quilt.

2. For a number of years I’ve had an insane amount of wrapping paper and ribbons and things-you-can-stick-on-packages to use up. Some I bought during my years of being addicted to after holiday shopping binges, some from my mom who gave me all her shopping binge excess when she moved. I’ve made a commitment to use it all up as best I can. I’m really excited because I’m almost completely out of wrapping paper this year and I don’t want to buy any new so I can start fresh with any idea or theme I want next year. I have whittled my box of ribbons and stuff down to half a box, still have lots of that. And don’t even ask me about my entire BOX of boxes of Yule cards – sigh. I might start giving those to my kids.

Well, I can’t really help you with the boxes and boxes of gift wrapping supplies. I definitely think you should use them up…. or give them away. If you enjoy the gift wrapping process (which I absolutely DO NOT), then go for it. Gift wrap is good for little kids, too (though they do get the hang of opening gift bags soon enough). As I mentioned above, we still use gift paper for some gifts. I think gift bags, aside from the fabric acquisition benefits, are great for recycling and reusing. Very little mess in the house and the recycling bin does not overflow.

We still buy cards every year and send them out. They have nothing to do with gift bags except that I can choose to write nice notes to people in my cards rather than spending 3 or 4 days wrapping.

3. It does occur to me though that I’m always at a loss for the proper sized boxes for small items. Maybe making up some of this gift bags for smaller items would be a good thing.
What do you do if it’s a fragile item? Put it in a box and then in a bag?

Yes, boxes are good for small or fragile items and we do put them in the box and then into the gift bag. you can wrap fragile items in bubble wrap (or those pillow things that come from Amazon work, too) before they go in the gift bag. I have also been known to wrap fragile or small items in small gift bags and put them in a larger gift bag especially if they are a group. This is sort of an alternative to the whole gift basket idea.

One of the great things about gift bags is that the present can be any shape. I, once, made a special bag for a weed whacker! Large things take a lot of fabric, but make it easy to wrap as well. Just stuff the thing into the bag. It does take a little extra time to make those special gift bags.

4. Oh,and P.S. – because I obviously didn’t write enough in my first comment! – I also love the way the wrapping paper entertains my cats. They love “helping” me wrap. They love sitting and leaping from the piles of wrapped packages. They treat them like perches. I suspect that gift BAGS would be treated more like cat beds and would be all fuzzy and cat hair decorated by the time I handed them to their recipients. But most fun of all, I love how the orgy of unwrapping creates an entire room awash in boxes and paper and ribbons and my cats dive and swim and tunney in the great big sea of paper. I believe my cats wait in anticipation ALL YEAR for that one glorious night of wrapping paper bliss.

Make your comments long, if you want! I love it!

I am happy for your cats and their joy of the holiday season. We have no cats, so they don’t factor into the equation. We have Sparky the visiting fish and he is fine with the gift bags.

Just incorporate some bags into your traditions. You don’t have to convert all at once. It will get your into your sewing room during the holidays, which will lower your stress level and be a fast and satisfying project. You will also get lots of comments around the Christmas tree. They look so pretty under the tree.

Go forth and make gift bags!

Whew! A major project is over with today and now I feel like I can breathe with no guilt.

Last weekend (when I was breathing WITH guilt) I stopped for awhile and made some gift bags. Every year I make some new ones in addition to the ones we use from previous years. Each year some are given away and we get some new ones from other family members who make them. All of mine are in storage so I have to make a bunch this year or else, God forbid, wrap gifts in wrapping paper. Bleah!

Gift bags are GREAT for the following reasons:
1. No buying gift paper or tape. This saves time, money and energy!
2. You get to use all that quilting fabric you bought for that Christmas quilt you never got around to making.
3. Easy to wrap.
4. Easy to rewrap. If the gift tag falls off, just untie the ribbon, look in the bag and put a new gift tag on it.
5. You get to see your cool fabric over and over each year.
6. Wrapping gifts takes half the time. (Yes, you have to make the bags, which takes time, but once that is over with – and you were going to sew anyway, right? – gift wrapping is easy.)
7. You can get lots of Christmas fabric on sale after Christmas inexpensively.
8. You can use this idea for any gift giving holiday.
9. Your friends and family will be impressed.
10. Use up fabric you won’t use in a quilt, but still like.
11. GREAT for those large conversationals.
12. Quick to make.
13. You don’t have to wash the fabric, because the sizing gives body to the fabric.
14. Great way to try out different embellishments and stitches using your fancy machine.

For those of you who love to wrap gifts, don’t make these. For everyone else: make a bunch and impress all of your friends.