Several years ago I sewed cloth bags to wrap all of my gifts for Christmas. These were a big hit with my family and the bags were swiftly repurposed for all manner of uses. (My favourite is the bag which now holds fifty or so wooden spools that my grandmother saved from her sewing – the spools are very popular with the younger nieces and nephews.)
So last year I was visiting my parents in the states and nipped over to JoAnn Fabrics and bought a selection of Christmas themed quilting cotton. I had it squirreled away all year until last week when I decided to make more Christmas bags. I’m a more accomplished sewist now so I made them with French seams and even included drawstrings on a few. This isn’t meant to be a tutorial, as there are many excellent ones available online already, but I thought I’d explain briefly how I made mine.
Having laundered my fabric, I snipped and ripped it into squares and rectangles of the appropriate size for the item I wished to wrap. I pressed them and finished the upper edges by turning the edge ¼ inch then another ¼ inch and stitching to enclose the torn edge. Then I stitched the other three edges (or two edges for those folded rectangle ones) wrong sides together, pressed/trimmed, then stitched with right sides together.
Finally I stitched on a length of ribbon, about a third of the way down one side. Voila – a finished bag. I’m also using these charming little wooden gift tags from CraftShapes. I had grand plans for painting them or staining/varnishing them but it simply isn’t going to happen this year. I think they are nice just as they come.
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