Boxes and Bags

I know it is the day before Thanksgiving and here I am going to mention Christmas. I don't usually like that, but it is somewhat of a necessity here. We live in Idaho and the rest of our family lives east of Missouri. To avoid the mail rush, I like to try to have presents wrapped, packed and shipped before or just after Thanksgiving. I managed to do that today (take note family boxes are headed your way!). Some of the boxes contain bags like these below.

At one of our local quilt shops, they had an example of a gift bag that was very cute and very similar to these. I asked to look at the book which had the pattern. I think it is called Strippin' Time. I would have bought it if there had been any other projects in it that I was interested in, but there was not. I was pretty sure I could figure it out on my own (I'm pretty good at that). Mine are a little different but basically the same idea.

I did the piecing and quilting as I went along. I had not done that before but I understood the concept - put the pieces on top of the batting and backing and sew them together while you are also quilting. The seam lines are the quilting lines. And since I wanted to make these fast, I did not do extra quilting. I also was using up some fusible batting which made them a little stiffer than if you use regular batting. I made them specifically to fit the gifts they hold, but I might make some more to have on hand. I was trying to use up some old Christmas fabrics I've had for a while (I've made Christmas fabric envelopes and fabric buckets in the past).

I like using these because the recipient can re-use them to give to someone else next year. Or after I looked at these, they could be stuffed with something and used as little decorative pillows!