By Laura Bray

Holiday gift wrapping can be a challenge. You buy expensive paper and take the time to carefully wrap your gifts…only to have it ripped off in mere seconds and thrown away. A few years ago, in the interest of our budget and the environment, we ditched gift wrap. Now we have reusable, felt gift bags. They’ve become a tradition and they bring out the same holiday feelings we have for our stockings. You can whip up felt gift bags in no time flat and make them any size you want. For my ten year old daughter, we made a big sack, measuring 1.5 feet x 2 feet. It looks like Santa’s sack, straight from his sleigh, and it can hold a lot of toys.

You can make this project as fancy or plain as you wish. A plain felt sack in holiday colors is beautiful in its simplicity or you can show off your stitching skills with fancy holiday shaped appliques. Today, I’ll show you how to make simple candy cane stripes on your bag.

Supplies:

• Eco-fi Plus™ Premium Felt in red and white.*

• Ribbon

• Basic sewing supplies

* You can now find an expanded color line of Kunin Eco-fi Classicfelt; Eco-fiPlus™ Premiumfelt and ShaggiChic non-wovens fabrics in cut by the yard at your local Walmart; please inquire as to what is available in your area.

Instructions:

1. Cut (2) rectangles of red felt measuring 19” x 27”.
2. Cut (3) strips of white felt measuring 19” x 3”
3. Cut (3) strips of white felt measuring 19” x 1”
4. Arrange strips of white felt, alternating the 1” and 3” strips over one of your red rectangles of felt. Pin in place and sew on.
5. Fold one short end of the red felt over 1.5” and sew, leaving the ends open. This will create the casing for your ribbon drawstring. Repeat on the other piece of red felt. When doing this step on the striped, piece, make sure you fold over to the back side.
6. Pin the two, red rectangles together, wrong sides facing.
7. Stitch around the sides and bottom with a seam allowance of 1”. Do not stich the top where the casings are! And make sure you don’t close up the holes on the sides of the casings!
8. Cut one piece of ribbon to a length of 30”. Attach a safety pin to it and feed it through the casing on one side.
9. Cut a second piece of 30” ribbon and feed it through the other side.
10. Fill bag with gifts.
11. Pull ribbons to close drawstring.