Can you believe I decided to make it on a whim? Crazy, I am! Here’s the story:
I went to the Moravian Bookstore to buy a Christmas ornament for my daughters’ preschool teachers. I knew I wanted to get them a gift certificate to Barnes & Noble too, so I just wanted a nice (and not super expensive) ornament for them. This store is known for selling Moravian star ornaments and they are not cheap. I didn’t want one of those. I just wanted something small to add to our gift.
Anyway, I chose an adorable snowflake ornament (should have bought one for myself!). At the register I asked the clerk for boxes. He said they only give boxes out for items that cost more than $10. Since each ornament fell short of that, I could purchase boxes. No thanks! I had some small felt mittens that I had bought last year that I thought I could use to tuck the ornament and gift card into. When I got home and tried, the ornament didn’t fit.
Now this was on a Sunday and I was hoping to deliver the gifts on Monday instead of Wednesday. I planned on going out to get 4 gift bags at the store but I remembered some red corduroy fabric that was leftover from a skirt I made for Kate. (I’ll post the skirt another time.) Then, my creative genius kicked in.
I grabbed my sewing notebook and drew what looked like a Santa sack. Drawing it was easy. Getting it right, was not. In my dining room sewing room, I worked for about an hour until I got it. Once the girls went to bed, I ran out to Joann’s to look for some white fuzzy fabric.
Once back home, I got to work. I decided to embroider each teacher’s name on their bag with my new Christmas present, an embroidery sewing machine (thanks honey!). After a few mistakes (bunched up fabric, incorrect type style, thread breakage), I finally got it. But here came the fun part – the white fuzzy material. This stuff was crazy. Literally little white pieces were all over everything. And I am not exaggerating! The floor, the dining room table sewing table, the kitchen, my clothes, the couch… That stuff travels! M has made me promise to not use it any more but I told him I’d at least wait until next year. You can actually see some of it in the picture. We had to use a lint brush to get it all off. Thankfully when it’s sewn on it doesn’t fray.
Here’s how the basic construction worked:
I used a small paper plate to trace a circle for the bottom. Then I needed to calculate how tall I wanted the side wall to be. It needed to be deep enough to hold the ornament I bought. This piece of material was a long rectangle. I folded the top of the fabric over about an inch. Where the material overlap ends, I sewed a stitch across the fabric. Then I sewed a line close to the top of the piece – near the crease where I just folded. This created a little casing for the drawstring. I sewed the rectangle closed on the shorter lengths, right sides of the fabric together. Then I pinned the bottom edge of the rectangle to the circle, right sides together. Once I sewed around the circle to attach the side to the bottom, I was ready to work with the white fuzziness. I cut a 3 inch wide strip that was the same length as the side wall of the bag. I don’t remember what that was now. I put the edge of the fuzz against the edge of the corduroy (right sides together) and sewed using about a 3/8 seam allowance. Once it was sewn, I opened the seam to fold the fuzz to the inside of the bag. I sewed the other edge to the inside. I had to be careful to not sew that in the middle of the casing. I had taken a strip of fabric (longer length than the side walls) about 1.5 inches wide. I folded it down in thirds and sewed a seam on both of the long ends. Then I attached it to a safety pin & fished it through the casing. When I had it through I tied a small knot on both ends to secure it. Voila! I was finished!
I hope that was easy to follow. I should have taken pictures of the process and done a tutorial about it. Next time.
Anyway, I didn’t deliver my gifts until Wednesday morning. They seemed to be a big hit. My only regret? I didn’t make myself one! I ran out of fabric with the 2 mistakes that I made. And to think, all this because I was too cheap to buy boxes!
–k
