DIY sewing project ~ Christmas gift sacks

When Lauren from the Offset Warehouse asked me to be a guest blogger for their special Christmas Showcase, I jumped at the chance. Not only is it one of my favourite online haberdashers, but it also has a great range of recycled festive fabrics ripe for the making, and my head immediately filled with ideas for festive sewing projects. My plan was to create Christmas gift sacks – like Santa’s sack but a little smaller, to wrap gifts with.

The ethical fabric company Offset Warehouse stocks a huge range of beautiful fabrics. All of their fabrics are either environmentally or socially beneficial, including FairTrade, Organic and reclaimed. For my project I needed a few offcuts of different fabrics for the main bag and for the contrasting top of the sack. I chose some soft red wool tartan and a couple of other tartans and checked fabrics that has been saved from landfill. Who would throw away perfectly usable and sizeable pieces of brand new fabric, I ask you?! Well I have them in my possession now, and I got to work on creating fabric gift sacks, using the pattern from the Crafting Christmas Gifts book by J.W Capplens Forlag above.

• Cut two pieces of 30cm x 28cm and a border strip of 56cm x 16cm. Place the sack pieces right sides together and sew around three edges, leaving the top open.
• Fold the fabric border in half so that it is the same width as the sack and sew together, leaving 2cm open at the top.
• Turn the top part of the border down, making it double, with the right side and the seam opening out.
• Make a seam for the ribbon casing around the border piece about 3 cm up from the bottom edge.
• Place the border inside the sack, matching raw edges and stitch together.

• Match the side and bottom seams together and sew across each bottom corner, about 4cm from the tip
• Turn the bag right side out and thread a ribbon drawstring  through the opening in the casing and pull to close the bag.
• Stuff with lots of goodies and gifts – this bag can be used as gift wrapping for one present, or could be used as a ‘santa’s sack’ stocking for Christmas morning!

This Christmas showcase project is a great way to highlight that the Offset Warehouse fabrics are as good quality as mainstream fabrics and I would definitely shop with them again for more bargain fabrics for my future projects.

Related articles

• Christmas gift ideas for chick flick fans (cassiefairy.com)
• Festive framed artwork decorations (cassiefairy.com)
• Pieday Friday ~ Christmas cake (cassiefairy.com)
• Spiced festive drinks for cosy winter nights (cassiefairy.com)