Taking liberties….

Sew I decided to take part in another couple of sewing swaps – both are Christmas swaps run by Tracy of Madaboutbags . The first is an advent swap and for this I need to make or buy 24 little gifts to be opened each day of December. The second is a Santa’s sack swap for which I have to make a bag or stocking filled with 5 hand made or bought gifts. So this weekend I decided to make a start on a small sack – but my partner is not keen on Christmas fabrics and so I chose to use up some liberty scraps. I made up the design based on a picture she had posted as I could not find a pattern.

First I cut out 8 strips of Liberty scraps into 6.5″ x 2″ strips, these were then sewn together. I then made a little strap from linen and liberty. The strap and scraps were then sandwiched between two strips of linen, both 6″x 12″. This was to be the front of the bag. I repeated the process (minus the strap) for the back of the bag.

From the same fabrics I also made two casings to go around the top of the bag and thread the drawstring through.  One of the casing was laid on top of one of the bag panels and then a lining material placed over the both. All three parts were then sewn along the top edge and pressed open. As you can see from the photo below, I repeated the process for the back of the bag.

The two panels were then put right sides together and the edges sewn around – leaving a small opening, corners were boxed and the whole thing was turned the right way out. Here is the end result….

I hope she likes it………………now for the rest of the gifts!!!

Happy stitching everyone!