We love to give and receive baked goods any time of the year.  They are so appreciated at a time when life is so busy.  We love putting them out and sharing them.  Last Christmas we were trying to decide how to package the goodies that we made and tried a few different ways.  Recently, while organizing the sewing room (this happens almost never you know).  While cleaning, I unearthed some leftover guest towel blanks from long ago.  Our nine-year-old had been asking to make something and was coming over to spend the night.  She loves to bake so we had a “pretend it’s the Christmas” night.  We baked some muffins in Christmas wrappers, did some very minor decorating and had a P.J. tea party.  We also made these easy gift bags to put away until the real holiday time came around. 

What you need:

1 Linen or Cotton tea towel (ours measured 14” X 22”) Annthegran.com has some colorful ones

Cut away stabilizer

32” Length of Ribbon ½” wide

4x4 Embroidery Design (We used designs from the Annthegran Christmas Gold II collection

Embroidery thread for your design

Sewing thread to match your towel

What you do:

1.       Lay the towel face up and measure down about 6” from the top 7” from the side (if your towel is a different size your placement might be different.)  Fold both ways to mark this for center of the design or mark with an erasable or disappearing marker.

2.       Hoop the stabilizer and towel using the center mark.

3.       Embroider your design.  Remove from the hoop cut away the excess stabilizer.

4.       Place the towel face up but upside down. Measure down 2.5” and mark at center width.  Match the center of the ribbon to the mark and sew it down.

5.       Now fold the towel right sides together and pin down both sides, making sure the ribbon is in the middle so it will not get sewn into the side seams of your bag.  Sew both sides.

6.       Turn right side out, fill it with goodies and tie the ribbon.

We had a good time making these fun gift bags! Change your design and you have a bag or any occasion.  Change the size of your towel and you can wrap most any gift. Anyone would be delighted to receive a homemade gift in a reusable bag.

Take care,

DB