Wednesday, November 16, 2011

day 160: christmas gift bag with ruffles!

the completed ruffle gift bag!
day 160 and i am back to the sewing machine again today.  today i have chosen to make a christmas gift bag with ruffles!  i keep seeing these gorgeous ruffle bags on pinterest and have been so inspired to make one as a holdall.  before i attempt something like that i wanted a creation to practice with and i thought a christmas gift bag would be perfect.

my inspiration came from this wonderful website sew.craft.create.  heidi saw this one on pinterest by blue robin cottage on the u-create crafts website which has a wonderful tutorial for making a ruffled tote.  i pinned it to my sewing diy board knowing it would be perfect.  i was totally inspired by both of these but wanted to make my own tote and have unfrayed edges for my ruffles.  i used purl bee's 20 minute tote tutorial to make the bag, complete with french seams!  this is the same tote design i used for all those halloween goodie bags on day 124, so i know the bag works well  :)

the supllies, the circles are to make some flowers with

the twenty minute tote is so easy ... this is step one, step to
is to sew up the sides ... easy aye!

the attached ruffles .... this was HARD work!

a close up of the ruffles and the two flowers i made
to go up the top of the gift bag :)

outcome:  ruffles on a bag are so much harder than they look.  it is really hard to get a straight line when your ruffles want to curve all over the show!  if i were to make this again i wouldn't bother with the unfrayed edges as that just added to the stress!  in the end i am really chuffed with this bag, but to make another like this probably won't happen in the near future, it was a lot more work than i anticipated!

many thanks to heidi at sew.craft.create and also to blue robin cottage for showing me how to make a simple ruffle to add to tote bags.  and for the actual bag, if you want a simple tote or gift bag you seriously can't go past the 20 minute tote tutorial for the purl bee website :)





3 comments:

Jen W. said...

Super cute! Love the flowers too.
Kept meaning to tell you that last week was the World Rugby Classic in Bermuda. On the opening night the All Blacks beat the Eagles (USA) 39 - 0! Everyone was impressed by the slaughter but then the second game of the night was even more of a killing - the Lions beat the Italians 83 - 5!!

Nadine said...

Those ruffles do look like hard work! Well done you!

I think the hardest part would be sewing them onto the bag AFTER the bag has been put together. If it was me, I'd leave the bottom of the bag open to make it easier (obviously this one has a fold for the bottom, so that would need to be changed). And to get the ruffles 'just right', you could possibly attach the ruffles first of all to some ribbon or tape, and then sew the nice straight flat ribbon/tape onto the bag.

Can you tell I NEVER follow sewing-pattern instructions to the letter? Used to drive my mum crazy when she was trying to teach me to sew! ;)

Kirsty, New Zealand said...

that's so cool about the AB's Jen! Damn Lions upstaging us ;) what i really need is for jen, nadine, and jenny all to come for december so i can become a crafting genius! if i win lotto over the coming weeks i will let you know so i can pay for you all to come!