Gift Baggage

This year Book Club got together for a napkin-making sweatshop and a wedding bunting-making sweatshop.  We rounded out the year with a gift baggage-making sweatshop earlier this month.  I neglected to take photos of the day as it progressed, but we ended up making about ten lined drawstring bags.

 We used this fun candy cane fabric and some poinsettia fabric, both of which were picked up for cheap at the Textile Center Garage Sale (I really do love that sale).  

They were lined with random greens and some fabric that felt like an old sheet.

After the sweatshop, I made a ton of bags with the remainder of the fabric.  I actually focused on bags more than anything else.  I don't know why I always get more excited about making gift bags than I do about making actual gifts.

If you'll notice, I also hand-crafted some gift tags.  I set up a little station at our dining room table and asked the girls to make colored thumbprints on blank tags.  Yeah, well, no one wanted to cooperate with that.  Trix ended up howling because Z did her thumb first and then would not stop crying.  I forget what made Zelda cry, but she did.  I think I cried, as well.  

I'd brought my serger to the sweatshop, but had forgotten to re-install some stitch arm that I had removed for the rolled hem of the napkins.  Once I was home, I put that back in and was able to use my serger on some of these bags.

 This was inspired by a Design-Sponge post on envelope gift bags.  I didn't make them as boxy as theirs.  I like to use the serger on smaller bags that I don't have to line or when I don't want to make a casing.  I just folded over the edge and tied it with a ribbon.

 Sometimes I stitched a ribbon to the back of the bag, too.  I wasn't so skilled at making a squared corner with my serger, so this one got a rounded corner.  It's not very pretty, though.

The Design-Sponge post used decorative serger thread.  I don't have any of that.  Maybe next year.

When I was visiting family over Thanksgiving, my sister-in-law said that she has really liked reusing the fabric gift bags that I have sent over the years.  When I was preparing their package, I grabbed a few extra bags, rolled them up, and shoved them in the box for her.