Creative articles about sewing

How to decorate a gift bag

Hi there! I want to share another great idea to repurpose, re use and recycle what we have at home 🙂

In this post I want to show you a quick and easy way to decorate a fabric gift bag by adding details made out of fabric leftovers.

In this case I will be using strips of fabric to make ruffles. This is a super easy way to repurpose an old fabric bag or to use branded fabric bags that we have at home.

There are many way to use fabric scraps using different fabric manipulation techniques.You can check out some more ideas here.

Materials and Equipment:

  • Sewing machine (I use a 475 QE)
  • Fabric scraps
  • A fabric bag
  • Fabric tape

Step 1

Gather the materials. For this tutorial I am using a little fabric bag that came with a belt that I bought a while ago.

I am also using strips of fabric which are leftovers from an old quilting project.

Measure the width at the middle of the bag (front and bag). The fabric strip needs to be 3 times longer than this measurement. 

Step 2

The next step is to make a ruffle. We are going to create a gathering effect and we will use a gathering stitch to achieve this.

Using the longest stitch available in your machine sew a stitch right through the middle of the fabric strip.

Remove from the machine leaving the thread tails long. Pull one of the threads and start gathering the fabric strip.

This is how my strip looks once I finished gathering it.

Step 3

Place the ruffle on top of the branding if you have it or on the middle area (in my case the branding is in the middle.

Pin it in place and take it to the machine. Make sure you have removed the table part so that you can place the bag all the way to the right of the needle and you can sew around the already closed bag.

When you have sewn the ruffles all around, fold one end of the fabric strip so that the raw edge is not showing.

Place the contrasting fabric tape on top of the gathering stitch and sew to the bag.

start in the middle and finish in the middle making sure to leave a few cm of tape loose at each end.

Make a bow using these loose ends. And here you go, a repurposed bag to use as a whole new gift bag or as a gift in itself!

I hope you have enjoyed this tutorial as much as I enjoyed making it 🙂

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