It's a Creative World

Sew a bag using a tea towel

 
Hi Debbie here with a very cheap way of making a bag.

I love all the bright designs that tea towels come in, and the beauty is the fabric is already hemmed.

I decided to decorate mine with a tree, it is easier to decorate the front of your bag before you sew the sides together. I have used paper to draw a template and then cut it out using felt.

I used flowers and buttons to decorate the tree.

Once you are happy with your design, fold the tea towel in half with the right sides together, and sew the seams on three sides. Turn the right side round and sew the handles on.

With the floral bag I sewed the handles on first before sewing the sides together. This meant that the handles show on the outside but also meet neatly at the bottom.

The floral bag has a small triangle sewn on the inside to make the bag into a box shape. Press the side seam of the bag onto the bottom seam and sew the triangle about 1.5" in.

 

I have added flowers and buttons to the floral bag to cover the sewing at the top. This really is an easy project to do and would suit a beginner. If you leave the flowers off, you could also put it in the washing machine if it ever gets dirty.

Debbie x

Gift bags with a difference

There’s no such thing as junk!

Hi - Dolly here again.

 

 

I own up – I am a hoarder and hate throwing things away.

When I was sorting out recently I came across this little gift pack from the Body Shop. I had used the toiletries inside but this little plastic box was just begging to be used.

I decided to ‘prettify’ it – that’s for another time – but before I did I took it apart and made a template from it.

 

 

The package was slightly too big to fit on an A4 sheet (or even on a 12 x 12 sheet) so I modified it slightly and made it look more like a little bag than the original.

I thought it would make a lovely gift bag for all sorts of things. Imagine how nice they would be as teacher gifts for example.

 

At the end of this post there is a link to the template so you can download it. It is a PDF file

 

You could pop in some little gifts or sweets or, what I am planning to use them for, you could put in a gift card. I buy quite a few gift cards at Christmas for people who would rather pick something themselves. I am not always keen on the cards stores sell with them. How nice they would be wrapped and popped in one of these little bags.

You need ….

one sheet of A4 card (I actually used a piece of 12” x 12” as it was the colour I needed)

One sheet of patterned paper

Ink

Journalling pen

Scrap of ribbon

Stamps and punches or other embellishments

Sharp craft knife

Glue

Print out the template which is included at the end as a PDF. It is sized to A4 but you could reduce it to any size you wanted.

Cut out the template carefully and use it to draw round on your card.

 

 

You could print it directly on the card but I prefer not to have the lines on my card so would rather cut it out twice.

Use a scorer to mark the score lines so you get sharp edges.

 

 

Assemble the box as shown in the pictures

 

 

 

 

Decorate with patterned papers (I used the first printed off template that I had cut out to get the sizes right for the patterned papers.)

 

 

I inked the edges of my patterned papers and also used faux stitching on them.

Add whatever embellishments you want and then fill with goodies.

  

 

And finally - here is the template

 

Download Bag box template

Christmas Gift Bags

 

Hiya Claire here

As its Christmas month here on IACW, I had to get my Christmas thinking cap on, and I came up with these really easy gift bags made from felt. I used 1 metre of felt & 1/2 a metre of the star fabric to make all of the bags, its quicker than wrapping all your presents & I never need to buy wrapping paper again!

I cut the felt to the sizes I wanted for the bags, most of these bags only have 2 side seams as the bottom of the bag is the fold in the fabric. I then cut some felt Christmas trees using my Sizzix machine (but you could cut them by hand) & hand sewed them onto what would be the front of each bag , I also pinned a strip of ribbon across the front of each bag

 

then I sewed the ribbon on with my very under used sewing machine

I also added a strip of beaded trim the same way

 

To make ties for the bags, I folded a piece pf ribbon (right sides together) & trapped it in the side seam & stitched to hold in place (taking care not to catch the open end of the ribbon in the other side seam)

 

Then sew both side seams on the machine (it can be done by hand... I tried to make sure... it just takes a lot longer)

 

When all the seams are sewn turn the bag the right way out & there you go some lovely Christmas gift bags that can be used over & over again

 

Hope you enjoyed this & I'll be back later in the month with a hanging table decoration.

See you soon

Claire

xx

Be our Guest....Sarah!

Hi from Caz!

Todays guest is my 10 year old niece, Sarah, who is a whizz on the sewing machine.

 

She has cleaverly fashioned this cute little bag out of an old pair of jeans, some spangles and red fleece.

  

I am totally blown away but her talent and I know that this is going to inspire you all to get your scraps and old clothes out and do some recycling :)

 

haPPy sEWing and haPPy frIDay!!
Caz and Sarah
xx

Bottle bag

Hello Eleanor here
Once a week I attend a meeting, and I take a pint of doorstep milk with me.
I've made a wipeable bag for it, with a simple design which could also be used to make reusable gift bags for wine bottles.Some time ago I made a tote from pvc coated cotton fabric, and tore out my hair at the difficulty in machine sewing on the right side of this tricky fabric, so I was determined that I would not stitch this bottle bag on the pvc side, only on the cotton side. My material - a coffee coloured polka dot:

It was about 12 inches square; I folded it in half, pvc sides together, and machined around one long and one short side. (Machining highlighted in black)

I caught in a folded length of twill ribbon about 2inches down from the end of the long edge:

I then used my usual method of boxing, (described  here )

Checked the fit, and trimmed the top edge to size with pinking shears:

And here it is, tied up and off I go.

Bye for now.

Pillowslip tote

Sometimes it's nice to give a special gift, such as perfume or undies, jewellery or a handmade garment, wrapped in tissue paper, in a special soft bag, which is re-usable or pass-on-able.
I am always on the lookout, in charity shops or at carboot sales, for pretty/striking/vintage pillowcases. They are usually 50 pence or less.
Here's a selection of recent finds:

I took one of these and opened it up along the side seams, including the flap so that I had one long piece of material.
Then I cut two approximate squares, as long as the fabric was wide.
I placed these WRONG sides together (right sides facing out) like this:

and stitched as follows:

I said it was tricky, but actually it's not that tricky, once you see what the corner should look like...

You can trim off the triangular corner now if you really want to, but my tote is going to have NO raw edges whatsoever. That little triangle will sit nicely in the bottom of the bag, not bothering anyone.

There goes Mango.

Leaving the bag still inside out, turn it around so that the opening is at the top.

Do this on both front and back, stitch along hem anchoring handles, and then stitch another line right at the top edge. Turn right way out.

I took a few bags into the garden to photograph like they do on all the best blogs, but there were no pieces of stunning antique furniture to display them on, only this...

It's an abandoned and derelict 2 tier rabbit residence, freecycled. Ripe for renovation.
WATCH THIS CRAFTY SPACE.

See you soon.
Eleanor

Customised bags

Hi from Jo!

I saw some gorgeous decorated cotton shopping bags on a friend's blog and decided to have a go myself using items I had left over from my cross-stitching and sewing days (before papercrafting took over my life!)

I started with some cheap cotton bags like this:

 

For my first bag I used some stamps and Stazon ink to stamp flower designs on the bag then attached buttons as the flower heads. I then sewed a length of ribbon along three-quarters of the bottom of the bag. Here's a photo of the detail:

 

For the next bag I used a piece of digital scrapbooking art as inspiration and drew the design on the bag with pencil before using stranded cotton to backstitch the design. I then used sequins and beads to highlight bits of the design:

 

And here's a photo of the finished item:

 

I've already given one of these as a gift and the one above is earmarked for another with another 3 in the pipeline! I'll be using more of my stranded cotton, buttons, ribbons, beads and sequins and, if I can dig my sewing machine out, some of the fabric scraps I've been hoarding.

Maybe it's something you may like to do yourself?

 

Easy Peasy handmade bag

A big Hi from a happily creating Caz!

Todays post is a little bit of bag heaven :) We are going to take a few quarters of fabric and create a cute, everyday, run around bag!

The idea for this project started when I discovered I needed a small, easy to carry bag for my few art supplies. I selected some co-ordinating quarters from my supply and decided which pattern I would use for which part of the bag.

Now I didn't have a pattern, so I had to make it up as I went, lol.

As you can see from the diagram below I only had a very rough idea as to what I was doing! The body of the bag is made up of 5 parts, the front and back, the sides and the bottom. (if you are using a large length of fabric you can make it out of less bits ;) ) And as the bag is lined we have the same amount of 'bits' for the inside.

My quarters are only 22 inches in length so I had to sew two bits together for the handle. And to strengthen it I made sure is was 6.5 inches wide so I could stitch it along the length, then turn in right side out before attaching it to the body of the bag

I do love the end result even though it is not 100% straight and accurate :D

Have fun creATing!!

Caz

xx

Christmas Sewing

Hi again, today we are bringing you ideas for handmade Christmas fabric items; we hope you get some ideas and inspiration. Trish xxx

I will start with my Christmas pinny. I bought this gorgeous holly fabric from my local fabric shop and got a bit of a bargain, as there was a pattern miss so ended up with more than I had wanted, which was ideal.
I put the fabric on the floor and laid my full length pinny on the top, gave myself a 1 inch allowance and cut round the shape, hemmed it all the way round, cut a medium sized rectangle, hemmed it and stitched it on for a pocket and used ribbon for the ties.
As I had some fabric left I decided to make a hot pad for getting the dinner out of the oven, I just cut 2 squares approx 9x9 inches of the patterned fabric, the same from slightly thicker plain cotton fabric, and the same again from wadding (doubled up), pinned it all together then used my sewing machine to stitch diagonally across to form a criss cross pattern, then edged it with bias binding, very quick and simple to do.

I still had a few scraps of the fabric left over, but not really enough to sew anything, so after hunting round the internet I came up with a great idea, A rag wreath, I made the circle with jewellery wire, it took quite a lot of wire to make it relatively sturdy, but you could always use an embroidery ring instead, I tore the fabric into strips approx 1 inch wide and 3 inches long, and tied it on the wire until it was full, I then tore a plain red fabric into slightly smaller strips, about half and inch wide and 2 and a half inches long and tied them in between, this wreath will hang inside my kitchen door.
Di has done a lovely pinny/sack/shopping bag using fat quarters and calico.

I bought about 5 "Fat quarters " in a little shop in Hitchin. Cut then into 6 inch srips and stiched them together. (about 5 feet of strips) Then backed them with calico so that the whole thing would be lined, turned the whole lot inside out and the top stiched. Almost too late added the smiley face buttons using embroidery cotton . i should have added them before attaching the lining so that the stiching would be concealed. I then made the ties, turned them inside out and attached them to the side of the SACK. VOILA I had a Christmas sack, a pinny with a BIG pocket, and a xmas shopper!!!! It is robust washable and I think quite Joyful.

Bags of fun

Hi, it's Maria here with a little project that I worked on with my girlie wirlies.

But, first of all I must say a huge thank you to the lovely Karen for her fab post yesterday. I shall be sending Graham up into the loft to dig out all my tired old picture frames.

The girlie wirlies had plain cotton bags in their Brownies kit and rather fancied zhuching them up a tad. They knew what they wanted but as it involved some sewing they enlisted my help.

They selected some felt from the fabric box and cut the shapes with the Sizzix. Then they raided the button jars and set about planning the design.

I printed their photos onto some canvas that I found at the bottom of the fabric box. I stuck it to a piece of plain paper with repositionable Herma before putting it through the printer.

I whiled away the wait for them at drama class sewing the buttons around their pictures. I then sewed the picture to the bag and attached the heart. A few flowers along the top were attached by sewing a button in the centre.

Now, I'm no fantastic sewer but it only took an hour or so to put one together. And, most of that was spent trying to thread the needle!!!

Now, I just need to help them with their sewing and they can sew those Brownie badges on for themselves.

You can get plain bags from Baker Ross rather cheaply if you fancy giving it a whirl. I quite fancy doing a couple of larger ones to use when I go shopping. Please remember to share any of your creations with us as we always love to see what everyone else does. Ok, we're just nosey really.

Toodle pip