fabric bag Archives - Sarah Goer Quilts

Happy Hanukkah!

I've been on a quest to make enough reusable Hanukkah gift bags to wrap the gifts for all eight nights before Hanukkah started this evening. Last month I shared a tutorial for a quick pillowcase style gift bag. I whipped together three final bags this afternoon and wrapped everything up. I'd still like to make a few more, but with a couple reused paper bags and boxes, and four of the reusable gift bags from Amazon, I was all set. I'm still feeling so appreciative of the bag I received as a gift.

My tutorial shows the most polished version I've made this year, with french seams, and a hemmed top edge, but there are ways to make this quick project even faster. On numerous bags I used the selvage edge to speed things up. Positioning the selvage at the top edge of the bag saves the need to hem the top edge. Or having the selvage edge along the side of the bag meant the seam could be a simple straight stitch seam (which I pressed open) before stitching the bottom edge with a french seam and hemming the top. On one bag I serged the seams as well as the top edge.

I have just a few more pieces of Hanukkah fabric that I will fashion into bags to eliminate the need for the couple of paper bags/boxes I used this year.

Opening the first gift of Hanukkah. He got Legos. :-)

Here's a peek at the inside of my hemmed edge and my french seam (on the right side) from my gift bag tutorial. Everything was stitched up with 50wt Aurifil. Depending on the fabric you chose, the hem could be fancied up with a decorative stitch.

This is a great time to visit your local quilt shop for sales on Christmas and Hanukkah fabric. Stock up now and make bags throughout the year to be ready for next holiday season. Or go with fun fabrics you love that would work year round for gift giving.

These were all for gifts given within our house, but I would use cloth bags for gifts given to other family members and friends, giving them the option to keep the bag to reuse themself or I could take it back for future gift giving.

I'm participating in the 31 Day Blog Writing Challenge with Cheryl of muppin.com.

Hello and welcome to my stop for TGIFF! I look forward to seeing what you’ve finished this week. Be sure to link up your finish below.

I opted for a super fast finish to share with you. Keep reading for all the tips on my process for making this pillowcase style gift bag.

I was recently given four Hanukkah fabrics (thank you Erin!) which I’m excited to have for making reusable gift bags. For years we’ve been using and reusing three Hanukkah gift bags. This works great since we give three gifts each night in our household. (Two kids, and my husband and I alternate gifts each night.) However, my kids have expressed a preference for having all eight of their gifts wrapped by the first night so that they can choose from the pile each night. So… I’ll be working toward having at least 17 reusable bags (which won’t happen this year).

The beauty of this technique is that you can do it with almost any size piece of fabric. Today’s bag was made from a half yard of fabric. I began by folding the fabric in half, wrong sides together with selvages touching. I pressed to crease the fold. Then I trimmed both cut edges to square up the fabric and trimmed off the selvage edges. This left me with a folded rectangle that measured approximately 20” x 17”.

After trimming I sewed a hem on each edge where I trimmed off selvage. (An alternative, and even faster option, would be to leave the selvage on and skip hemming.) My hem was made by folding 1/4”, pressing, then folding a second time and pressing again. My second fold was about 5/8” from the first fold, but as long as it’s a little bigger than 1/4” it’ll work. Once pressed, I stitched with a 3.5 stitch length approximately 1/8” from each fold. I do this with the wrong side of the fabric facing up so I’m sure to not miss the edge of the hem. I used Aurifil 50wt Medium Blue (#2735).

With wrong sides together, I stitched each side seam using a ¼” seam allowance, backstitching at the beginning and end. Then I trimmed that seam allowance down to 1/8”.

Next, I turned it inside out. I worked the corners out using a chopstick and pressed the seam to help avoid the fabric slipping while I sew. Then I sewed the two seams again, this time with right sides together. This step envelops the raw edges in the seam. Tada! French seam! If you find that you aren’t catching the raw edges in your seam, try stitching 3/8” from the edge in this step.

Flip right side out. Press the seams. Add a closure (hook and loop tape or a ribbon) if desired. (We usually just fold over the edge, but I’ve been known to tie closed with a strip of selvage, as shown. A chip clip works, too!)

Happy Holidays!

Please share your Friday Finish in the linkup below and be sure to hop around to view what everyone else has been up to this week! Share a link to this page so your readers can find the list and explore. Thanks for visiting!!

The products featured in this post were given to my by Aurifil and FreeSpirit Fabrics.

As an Aurifil Artisan I was invited to participate in an Anna Maria Horner Showcase. I was given three fat quarter's from Anna Maria Horner's Meandering Colorway of her Passionflower collection.

This ended up being a plan A turns into plan B turns into plan C... kind of project. I might be on F. ;-) Initially I was considering ways to use all three fabrics together and then decided I would add some solids. I wanted to lighten up the palette and add some contrast. Then I decided I really liked two fabric pairings with one fat quarter and one solid. I decided I would make a two sided mini quilt with planned improv log cabins, using the third fat quarter to bind.

But after I started piecing my log cabins (which I'm happy with individually) I decided that if I made it two sided I wouldn't be able to do decorative quilting in a way that I would be happy with it from both sides (since my log cabins are constructed differently and not mirror image of each other). So I switched gears and opted for an Open Wide Zippered Pouch. I've made a ton of them and they never disappoint!

I considered a patchwork exterior and finally settled on simply using the Passiflora in Heather for the panels of my pouch.

I chose Aurifil 50wt Dusk (#6733) from the Pastel Collection to do a little thread painting to stitch around the elements in the print. I love the simple detail it adds to the fabric. I think my new open toe free motion foot has really opened a world of possibilities, because this would have been really tricky with the darning foot I've used for FMQ for the last 8 years.

My pouch is slightly smaller than the small size in the tutorial and I backed my outer panels with SF101 Shape-Flex by Pellon. This worked well for the outline stitching/thread painting, though I wonder if I would need something more robust for thread painting if it were more dense. If you have experience with thread painting, what have you used?

Thanks for visiting!

Check out some of the other projects being shared with Anna Maria Horner's Passionflower Collection.