2012 Gift Bag

In cleaning up the fabric avalanche, I found a piece of marginally Christmas fabric. It is a little pale to be a gift bag, because eager eyes can see through it, but I made a gift bag anyway.

This made me think about my Christmas fabric and after looking through all that I had, I decided I needed to make bags out of it. My ribbon can is also overflowing. I don’t need anymore gift bags and the family is pretty well set, so I decided to try and encourage YOU to start using gift bags for your holidays. To encourage you, I will offer a prize of a variety of gift bags in November for anyone who participates. Most of them will be Christmas bags, because that is the fabric I have.

In order to participate you must:

• sew gift bags. No tape, staples or glue. Any fabric works
• post a photo to your blog or Flickr (or other easily accessible web space) of the gift bags you made
• put a comment with a link to the photo of your bag or bags in this post or a post related to the gift bag challenge. Each gift bag challenge post will say something like gift bag challenge

I will:

• keep track of participants
• post a tutorial and ideas for making gift bags
• on or around November 15, I will draw a name or names (depending on the number of gift bags I have to give away) of the winners

You may:

• enter more than once, but the limit is 10 times, which is about the number of months until November
• embellish, embroider to your heart’s content
• use any pattern you want including my tutorial

Rules subject to change without notice and my discretion.

• Fabric – I use either a half yard, a yard or a fat quarter. If you use a yard you can make 4 smallish bags, two medium bags or one large bag. You can make bags with any size piece of fabric and you can make a specially sized bag for a special gift.
• thread
• ribbon
• Sewing machine
• basic sewing kit

For this tutorial, we will use a fat quarter of fabric

1. If your fat quarter does not have a selvedge, create a hem using two folds so there are no raw edges. If your fat quarter has a selvedge, use the selvedge for the top. It won’t unravel.

2. Press hem in place.

3. Sew hem with a decorative stitch, if you have it, a zigzag or straight stitch work fine as well.

Optional: If you have stitch letters on your sewing machine, stitch your name and the year so you know when you made the bag.

4. Fold hemmed bag in half RIGHT SIDES TOGETHER so that half of the hem is underneath itself towards the top and the fold is on the left. You will be making a French seam.

5. Fold a piece of ribbon about 1.5 feet long in half. You can adjust the size of ribbon you use depending on how much ribbon you need to tie.

6. Place the folded ribbon in the open side of the bag about 4″ from the top edge/hem.

7. Pin ribbon in place.

8. Pin rest of the right side and bottom closed.

Use an 1/8″ seam allowance or as small as you can.

9. Starting from the top, sew down the right side, backstitching at the beginning and over the ribbon 2-3 times. You want to backstitch at stress points to keep the bag from ripping apart.

10. Turn at the corner and continue across the bottom, backstitching at the end.

11. Turn the bag inside out, so the right sides are together and the ribbon is out of the way of the seam (It will be inside the bag, but I put mine as straight as possible towards the opposite side of the bag.

12. Press seams, taking care to push them as far out as possible so there is no extra fabric near the seams.

Use a 1/2″ or 5/8″ seam allowance.

13. Starting at the top, sew down the side and across the bottom again to finish the seam.

14. Open bag to make sure the raw edge is hidden inside the seam.

15. Turn bag inside out and press.

Voila! Your bag is really to use!

Please come back and check this tutorial out as I may update it.

Gift Bags 1&2

One of my medium nephews was over while his parents were gone and he decided he wanted to make a pillowcase.

The first step was to select fabrics. In the course of doing that, we pawed through my Christmas bag fabrics. I was reminded that I needed to get busy on some bags for 2010.

I have two gifts for two different people at work who have been especially helpful to me this year, so I decided to make bags for them. I don’t normally spread bags outside of the family, but the alternative would be to actually wrap the gifts with PAPER. Ugh! So, above are the bags. I used the French Seam method that I learned from the Twiddletails pillowcase pattern. I am not at all near making very many bags this year so far. That can always change, though, right?

Pie in Progress

Yes, the prompt is a day early. I thought I would shake things up a bit and I had nothing planned for today.

Post the direct URL (link) where your drawing, doodle, artwork is posted (e.g. your blog, Flickr) in the comments area of this post. I would really like to keep all the artwork together and provide a way for others to see your work and/or your blog.

The Creative Prompt Project, also, has a Flickr group, which you can join to  post your responses. Are you already a member? I created this spot so those of you without blogs and websites would have a place to post your responses. Please join and look at all of the great artwork that people have posted. Post yours and get kudos!

an expression of gratitude

Danke

Ta

Cheers

Give thanks

Say thanks

thank you notes

Thanks very much

A million thanks

I can’t thank you enough

With special thanks

Thanks for understanding

Thanks for the memories

Thanks for being there

With deepest thanks

At the last CQFA meeting, Bron brought a few pieces of FabMo fabric and I scooped up a couple. You’ll see some of them soon, but I already made the gift bag.

Lush Gift Bag

This fabric is some kind of velvet like material and it changes the whole look of the gift bag. I didn’t take any chances when sewing it. I used the new open toe walking foot because I am not familiar with how this fabric acts in the sewing process.

The ribbon is also from another gift.

It is an odd shape, because I just used the shape of the sample and folded it in half. The edges were serged and I wanted to maintain that integrity.

One of the things I like about it is that it looks really special. That is a good reminder for me that the fabric really makes the piece – especially in other types of sewn accessories that don’t have the opportunity for quilting or embellishment, etc. I realize that the maker could do both on a gift bag, of course, if the design were different.

Lush Gift Bag detail

I actually think that gift bags would be a good way to try out new techniques, feet, stitches on your sewing machine, free motion quilting, etc.

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.

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.

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!

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!

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!

You name it. I love them. I am also a bag lady, as you might have noticed. Not that I am not particular about the bags that I buy or make, but havingg the right bag at the right time makes all the difference.

This site has a list of of many free (and some NOT free) patterns for a variety of bags that you can make. Some of them might make great Christmas or holiday gifts.

clipped from tipnut.com 35 Reusable Grocery Bags You Can Make – Free Patterns clipped from tipnut.com Sewing Grocery Bags & Totes Fabric Grocery Sacks: Replicas of plastic grocery sacks made from vintage sheets and pillowcases (any fabric will do!). These also make cute lunch bags. Features a tie closure for a neat fit in your purse when not in use. MorsBags.com: Offers a downloadable pattern in pdf or word doc format (also an animated web tutorial). Simple tote style, easy to make. SewUseful San Fransisco Shopper: Roomy fabric tote with shoulder straps, folds down nicely to fit into a pocket or purse.