Drawstring gift bags

The long-awaited baby H, my niece, has finally made her appearance. She is already much-beloved, the first grandchild on both sides. Z and I went south for a couple of days to visit her and I brought along gifts: scotch to pamper the new daddy, a little bag full of nail polish and makeup (all in shades of pink) to pamper the new mommy, and some cute baby things to pamper the new baby. 🙂 I made drawstring bags for each gift.

I forgot to take a picture of the bag I made for the scotch, but it was like the other wine bags I’ve made. I used the green peacock feather print that I made their wedding quilt from.

For my sister-in-law I made this cute pink bag, which fit the small case I’d bought and filled with lip glosses and nail polishes. My sister-in-law, you may recall, loves pink and I’m happy to indulge!

For baby H, I broke out some brand new fabric. This is a far quarter of Riley Blake’s Saltwater collection. I got it from Connecting Threads. (Check out my next Sunday stash post to see that I went a bit overboard buying fabrics, after almost a year of not buying fabric unless it was for a specific project.)  This line is so cute. It has sea turtles, narwhals, mermaids, and little fishes, in delectable shades of pink, coral, sea foam green, yellow, and a lovely dark blue. I bought it on an impulse buy and decided I needed to use it immediately.  (I have a ton left.)

I took the pictures before I put the ribbons in for the drawstrings but you can use your imagination. 🙂

What I like about drawstring bags is that they can be reused. I made myself a couple of shoe bags and I think I should make more. They’re so useful.

Mother’s Day Presents: Drawstring Bags

For Mother’s Day I made drawstring bags for my mom and my grandma.  My mom requested aqua, and I used the leftover aqua backing fabric from this quilt.  I have strips of random widths leftover, so I cut four approx. 20″ long strips and sewed them together.  I even pressed my seams open!  I wanted to add a little something special, so I took two of these hearts and machine appliqued them.  I used my satin stitch foot and did a zigzag stitch.  I had a little trouble with puckering – not sure what I’m doing wrong there.

For my grandmother, I used a pretty, soft yellow and blue floral print.  I forgot to take a picture, but she loved it.  (I also forgot to take a picture of my mom’s bag before I gave it to her, but I remembered while I was at home last weekend, which is why this post is so delayed.)

Recent presents

Hi habibis!  I wanted to share a few presents I made recently:

I made this quilted bookmark for a cousin for her birthday, using leftover Air Force fabric.  I quilted it with white thread.

These sashiko coasters are from the Handstitched class.  (Yes!  I finally finished a project from the class.)  I didn’t follow the instructions 100% when it came to the design because I couldn’t figure out how to replicate it properly, but I’m very happy with the design.  I made them as a birthday/apartment warming gift for my friend R.  I love the geometric print, and I think I matched it up nicely with the solid.  I used variegated thread.  I swear I took pictures but I can’t find them, so here’s a picture R took.  Isn’t she a great hand model?

This shoe bag is for my friend A.  I let her pick from a few different fabrics, all of them blue/purple-y. (She loves cool tones.)  I wish I’d made it bigger – it should fit most shoes, but I would have liked something larger.  I love the butterfly print.

Shoe Bags and a Project Bag

Hi habibis!  Happy Wednesday!

Today I’ve got more bags to show you.  First, I made some shoe bags.  I saw this post on Kellita Makes and I thought shoe bags would be a great idea for traveling.    I went back to the post a couple of weeks ago and clicked through – in October Kellita posted links to several tutorials and I chose this one.  I didn’t follow her instructions 100%.  When you fold the top down to sew the space for the ribbon, she sewed two seams, one at the very top to form a tube.  I skipped the top seam and simply sewed the one bottom seam.

One of these bags was a present for Spry.  I used this cute red check print – gifted to me by our mutual friend Nikki – and rather than ribbons I used (no joke) the straps from my bridesmaid’s dress for my brother’s wedding.  We never used the straps, and when I went to throw them away I thought perhaps I could use them instead.  I ripped the little garment hooks off the straps and threaded them through.  I love the pop of blue against the bright red.

I made two shoe bags for myself, using leftover green fabric from my brother’s wedding quilt.  I made a third bag that’s extra big, for boots or for laundry.

I made a slightly more complicated bag for my projects.  I’m slowly progressing through an embroidery sampler T-Rex gave me, and I wanted a bag large enough that I could just slip it in, with a pocket to carry around my embroidery thread and other little notions that go with it.  I decided to use the leftover green fabric, as well, but I wanted to use a lining just in case, on the off chance that the dark green might bleed onto my projects.  (Paranoid?  Probably.)   The bag is lined in a cream print with little crescents and the pocket is lined in scraps of yellow I’d used to back my grandma’s yellow and orange quilt.

I used batting scraps to make it sturdier.  I quilted the layers to hold them together.

I made this little pocket for notions and I used ribbon and the buttons from my Aunt D for closures.