Christmas Gift Bags

There isn’t a much better way to spend a Saturday afternoon than being crafty, having fun and learning some new skills at the same time. I treated myself to a Christmas Gift Bag workshop at Creative Crafts and Workshops and spent a few hours doing all the aforementioned.

The workshop went through the basics of using your machine, which I knew, but was very useful to those who didn’t. To make my clutch bags all I needed to do was to sew in straight lines, with only one curve.

I sewed hems for the first time (well maybe I did them in textiles classes at school, but as that was  20 years ago, it doesn’t really count!):

They are not perfect, but they’ll do!
Don’t you just love the fabric?

I have appliqued by hand, which takes ages. I dread to think how many hours it took me to applique the alphabet cushion, flower cushion and Christmas stockings last year! I cheated and just decorated ready bought items for these, but I didn’t have a sewing machine at the time.

Applique by machine is definitely quicker than by hand. The basics are the same. To make life easier I used bondaweb to keep my shapes in place.

Then I used the machine to sew them in place. You really just need to have the confidence to have a go!

With a button as embelishment and some more sewing, complete with the addition of ribbon for a tie,.I had one Christmas gift bag!

I had a few hiccups whilst making it, but I was helped and encouraged along the way. These bags are actually quite easy to make. I had time to make another.

I went for Christmas pudding applique the second time:

When the bag is open it looks like this:

And shut:

The second bag took me considerably less time than the first. I am considering filling them with chocolates for those hard to make for men in my life. I have some Christmas fabric in my stash, so am tempted to kick Mr M and his laptop off the dining table and set my machine up!