from The Cottage Mama

Welcome to the Bake Craft Sew Along! If you love to sew then you won’t want to miss a day of sewn handmade gift ideas. According to Kelly is featuring gifts that can be crafted and A Southern Fairytale is sharing recipes perfect for making edible gifts! Don’t forget to enter our SEW Amazing Giveaway. Just visit The Cottage Mama today.

homemade holiday

Hi, I’m Lindsay Wilkes from The Cottage Mama and I’m thrilled to be back at Skip To My Lou guest blogging again for this lovely series.

Reusable fabric gift bags

I don’t know about you, but the amount of wrapping paper we seem to go through each year is crazy. I thought it would be fun to use up some of my holiday fabric and create some Reusable Fabric Gift Bags that we could use year after year. That way it cuts down on some of the waste in our home and then I get to see some of my pretty fabric sitting underneath the Christmas tree. It’s a win-win, don’t you think?

Reusable Fabric Gift Bags by Lindsay Wilkes from The Cottage Mama. www.thecottagemama.com
Place your beautiful fabric gift bags under your tree ready to surprise family and friends!

For the novice sewer to even the more experienced, this will be a fun sewing craft…and super useful as well. Although its perfect for eliminating the after effects of opening gifts, you can use this method to create cute little bags at anytime for any occasion you deem necessary! So, let’s get started.

Materials needed:

  • Fabric
  • Sewing Machine
  • Scissors
  • Cord or Ribbon
  • Iron
Reusable Fabric Gift Bags by Lindsay Wilkes from The Cottage Mama. www.thecottagemama.com

Instructions

Step 1

Cut your fabric. You can make these bags any size that you would like, but if you want to make your life really easy, just make them the width of your fabric and then you will only have to sew one side seam.

Reusable Fabric Gift Bags by Lindsay Wilkes from The Cottage Mama. www.thecottagemama.com

Step 2

After you have cut your fabric, measure down 1″ on both pieces near where you will sew one of your side seams. Mark with a fabric marking pen.

Reusable Fabric Gift Bags by Lindsay Wilkes from The Cottage Mama. www.thecottagemama.com

Step 3

Turn the fabric so that the right sides are together. In the picture above, the wrong sides are together so turn them the opposite direction. Sew the bottom and one side seam all the way up until your 1″ marking. Press the seams open. If you are doing a smaller bag with two side seams, sew both of them, but you only need to leave the top 1″ open on one of the side seams.

Reusable Fabric Gift Bags by Lindsay Wilkes from The Cottage Mama. www.thecottagemama.com

Step 4

Fold over the top 1″ towards the wrong side of the fabric and press to form a casing. As you can see, I serged the edges of my fabric for my bags, but that is completely optional…….I just like how neat and tidy it makes the edges.

Reusable Fabric Gift Bags by Lindsay Wilkes from The Cottage Mama. www.thecottagemama.com

Step 5

Sew the casing by stitching close to the raw edge of the fabric that you’ve turned over to the wrong side of the fabric. Sew all the way around the top.

Reusable Fabric Gift Bags by Lindsay Wilkes from The Cottage Mama. www.thecottagemama.com

Step 6

You will have a little opening in the side seam to thread your ribbon or cord because of the 1″ we left open when sewing the side seam earlier. Thread your cord or ribbon using a bodkin or safety pin. Make the cord as long or as short as you would like. I used spaghetti bias as my cord since I had a lot of that on hand from other sewing projects, but you can use anything you would like.

Reusable Fabric Gift Bags by Lindsay Wilkes from The Cottage Mama. www.thecottagemama.com

Step 7

 Fill your bags and then you are all finished!

How did your family and friends enjoy receiving their gifts in these cute bags? Let us know in the comments!

More Fun fabric Christmas projects

  • You can check out how to whip up some of these DIY Christmas Pillowcases HERE.
DIY Christmas Pillowcases from The Cottage Mama. www.thecottagemama.com
  • make this easy Holiday Tablecloth with built in table runner by clicking HERE.
Holiday Tablecloth Tutorial by Lindsay Wilkes from The Cottage Mama. www.thecottagemama.com

HAPPY HOLIDAYS from The Cottage Mama!

If you get a chance, come on over and visit me at The Cottage Mama, I always love meeting new friends. I just released my first book, ‘Sew Classic Clothes for Girls: 20 Girls’ Dresses, Outfits and Accessories from The Cottage Mama‘, plus I have lots of other fun sewing projects that I think you’ll want to check out.

SEW Amazing Giveaway worth over $1000

Stop by The Cottage Mama  for more sewing inspiration and to enter the SEW Amazing Giveaway today (you get a new entry everyday)! I am giving away more than $1000.00 worth of sewing goodies! You won’t want to miss this!

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Comments

  1. I use cutouts of old Christmas cards. Use a hole puncher. Write your To and From on the blank side and thread the “tag” thru your tie. I always tell out of town recipients that the bag(s) is part of their gift. Pass it on sort of thing!

  2. a dear friend gave me a pendant. I had admired it and she made one for me. I love and wear it all the time.

  3. These look awesome! I am always a bit sad when I see the pile of wrapping paper after all the presents are opened.

  4. I’ve been collecting fabric from after-christmas clearance sales and this might just be the year I get to it.

    The one question I have is, how do you tag the bags so they know who it belongs too?

    Peeking might be an issue too. Time will tell.

  5. I love these, and the instructions look easy enough for a hobby sewer like me. Thanks! Can’t wait to make some of these!

    Gretchen

  6. You can make them roomier by adding a gusset/ pleat at the bottom. Turn the bag inside out and pinch the corner with your fingers such that the bottom seam is in the middle and you make a small triangle.Just sew across ( perpendicular to the bottom seam , maybe 2- 3″ ) Do this for both bottom corners and you have a 3-D bag :). Great tutorial , Lindsay . I got someone to buy your book for me and get it to me here , half the world away ,in India . Waiting to get my hands on it !

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