So I was sitting there last year, in the mountain of crumpled paper left by Christmas morning, and felt horrible at all the waste. My internal conversation went something like this:
For next year, I should probably make some gift bags out of fabric that would be reusable.
But inexpensive cotton tends to be sort of thin. It would have to be lined.
If it’s lined, I might as well use something not-Christmassy, so they will be reusable and reversible throughout the year, too. Birthdays, whatever.
You should make them in generic sizes, too.
We should do this. Agreed, Smeagol?
Agreed.
And then I got caught up in keeping the One Ring from being tossed into the fires of Mt. Doom, so I only remembered only a few weeks ago I was going to do this. Good thing they’re quick work. They’re especially quick if you make patterns and go into an assembly-line sort of production, making a bunch all at once.
[originally posted here. sorta. In 2011.]
Prep work:
Pre-wash and iron your fabric. Don’t be like me. If there are wrinkles in your fabric, it’ll be more difficult to make sure all your pieces are exactly the right size, so they match up.
Decide how big your bags need to be. It’ll depend on all sorts of things, including whether you have a specific gift in mind, or whether you just want to make a generic bag. Remember, these are intended to be reusable, so I recommend aiming towards at least big enough for a dvd case or a hardback novel. And also remember that you need to have enough fabric at the top to gather and tie with a ribbon. I made this one a random size, but I made others with about 1″ tolerance around the size of the gift. Before Christmas and Hanukkah, I’m probably going to be make a few even larger ones.
I decided to piece together the fronts for two reasons: I didn’t have enough of one of the fabrics I liked to make a bag by itself, and I thought it needed some visual interest. So putting a stripe of a different fabric down the centre solves both of those problems. You don’t have to piece bits together, if you don’t want to. You could use just single pieces. Or you could piece them together differently. Have fun with it. The main point is to have the finished pieces be the right size for your bag.
This one in the pictures: middle section: 3.25″ wide, 14″ long side sections: 4.5″ wide, 14″ long
Measure well. I like to use a steel cork-backed ruler and a quilting square. In fact, draw and cut yourself some patterns if you’re going to be making more than one. (Cereal boxes work well, I’ve found, or some other thinnish cardboard.) If you make your patterns accurately, it will make marking and cutting your fabric a cinch. And, of course, speed up production.
Everybody seems to have favourite tools for marking their fabric; I like a silver sharpie. But in the past I’ve used tailor’s chalk or pens with invisible ink intended for this purpose. Mark and cut out your fabric pieces all at once, for both side A and side B.
Step 1: If you’re piecing stuff together, do all that first. Pin the pieces together, then sew them, then iron the seams open. Make sure all your finished sides are the same size. When you’re done, you should have two fronts and two backs. (Heh heh. Two backs.)
Step 2: Take the front and back for side A, pin them right sides together, and sew with a 1/4″ seam allowance. Do the same for side B.
Clip the corners. (This eliminates bulk in the corners once they’re rightside-out.
Step 3: Turn side B rightside-out. Put it in the other bag, so that both of the right sides are facing together.
Pin both side A and side B together at the top, matching up any and all seams. Sew around the top with a 1/4″ seam allowance, leaving about 2 1/2″ or so unsewn. Then turn the whole thing right side out, pushing both sides through that unsewn gap. It should then look like one big rectangle, divided down the centre into two different patterns.
Step 4: Push side B into side A so that side B becomes the lining for side A. Flatten down and iron the edge, giving it a nice, sharp, crease along the top seam. Tuck in the edges of the fabric where the gap was, and iron that part very well.
Using a scant 1/8″ seam allowance (I basically line up the edge of the seam along the right side of the foot), sew a seam along the top of the bag to hold that freshly-ironed crease in place. Be sure to keep the edges of the fabric from the unsewn gap tucked in nicely, so they get held in by that seam and the gap is mostly camouflaged. In terms of thread colour, you can use two different thread colours if you like. Just have the bobbin thread match the colour of the fabric facing down, and the spool thread match the colour of the fabric facing up. Trim any dangling threads, and you’re done!
The main batch of bags needed depth. I could have just made bags as I did above, just large enough to compensate for the depth of the gift, but I decided to make the bags three dimensional instead. So I needed sides and a bottom.
How to make a bag with depth:
1) Cut pieces of fabric as long as the sides of the front pieces, and as wide as you want the bag. These are the sides. Cut another piece as wide as you want the bag, and as long as the bottom of the front pieces.
2) After step 1 above… Sew the sides to the front and the back, and press the seams open. You should have what amounts to a cylinder of fabric.
3) The bottom is the tricksy bit. Tricksy like hobbitses: Pin one side of the bottom to the bottom of the back, right sides together, as in the illustration below. Look at the way the corners are folded back, away from the centre line of the bag, and the way the side of the bottom piece lines up with them. I suggest putting a pin right on that seam, marking its location. Pin all the way down the long side to the other corner, making sure that if you’ve pieced the front and/or back that you pin open the middle seams. Fold the other corner back the same way you did the first one, and put a pin along that seam to mark it. Sew, using a 1/4″ seam allowance, starting and stopping where you marked the seams. Do the same thing on the other long side of the bottom. You should now have both long sides of the bottom piece sewn on.
4) Turn the whole thing sideways. Line the side of the bottom piece up with the bottom of the side piece. (Check the illustration.) Pull the front piece and the back piece out at nearly-45-degree angles, line up the seams that run along the bottom of the front piece and the bottom of the back piece with the seams that run along the sides. Everything should square up nicely at this point. Pin everything in place and sew another 1/4″-seam-allowanced line from seam to seam. Flip the bag around and do the same thing on the other side. When you’re done, you should have a bag with sides and a bottom.
For this project, the bag needs a lining, so you’ll have to do all that again with the other fabric to make another bag, then join up with the instructions above at step 3.
However, if no lining is needed, feel free to finish off the raw edges in the manner of your choosing and enjoy your new bag.
