brrr! bags + giveaway

JUST A QUICK NOTE:  THE GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED!

Just before Christmas I received the most beautiful pile of gorgeous fabric from talented fabric designer Laurie Wisbrun.  I spent a lot of the holiday break thinking about what I wanted to create with it and this vision of a pile of box bags would not leave my head.

Since my daughter’s birthday is in January, I felt like her party was the perfect excuse to make the bags, so I did.  To say that these goodie bags went over well at her party is an understatement.  The kids liked them, but I could tell the Mom’s were plotting ways to keep them for themselves.  {Well, I guess I can really only speak for myself here, but I have definitely been downplaying their appeal with my kids.} This fabric, you guys!  It’s fantastic.  How perfect is the scale of the two polar bear prints for this sort of thing!?!!  They are just too sweet.  This is a very early sneak peek–Brrr! will be available in June.  There are more photos of this wonderful line of fabric on Laurie’s blog. I am so grateful to Laurie for sending me these beautiful prints.  I had so much fun making these!

My process for sewing these involved a mash-up of several free online tutorials I have used in the past.  I considered sharing my full process in more detail, but I am questioning whether there is a need for yet another box bag tutorial.  This one sums it up really nicely and other tutorials I have learned from before  include this one, this one, and this one. I will leave you with a few project notes at the end of this post.  These jottings are basic and I am really just posting them here so that I don’t lose track of them. If you’ve never tried to make a box bag, these will probably sound like gibberish, and that is OK!

On to the fun part!  Who would like to win a fat quarter pack of this adorable line of fabric? Just say hello via a comment on this post and I will choose a random winner on February 1.  I will ship internationally.

Project notes:

-The finished bags measure 7″ x 4.5″ x 3″ (L x W x H).  I start with a rectangle that measures 11.25″ x 16.5″ and use a .5″ seam allowance. I cut the sides that measure 11.25″ with pinking shears.

-There are exposed seams inside.  I used to be very opposed to this, but since I finish the seams with a zig zag stitch, there really isn’t much of a difference in the end result and it saves so much time.

-I use a medium weight sew-in-stabilizer/interfacing in between the outer fabric and the lining. Using an interfacing that has an adhesive on both sides would make the process of attaching the zipper easier.  I get nervous about wrinkles that can appear with adhesive interfacing, so I try to stay away from it.

-I do this cheater thing when I sew on the zipper. I top stitch and attach the zipper to all three layers of fabric all in the same step.  This probably involves breaking SO MANY RULES but it works for me. This is also why I “pink” the ends of the fabric on the sides that measure 11.25″. The first tutorial that I link to does this as well.  It is a time saver and simplifies fussy-cutting.

-I sew the fabric onto the zipper in a particular order so that it doesn’t get all bunchy and awkward in the neck of my sewing machine.  I would love to explain this but I need to just take a photo so that I am able to express myself well.  (Has anyone ever seen a tutorial that explains this part?)

–When I box the corners, I mark a line that is 1.5″ inches down from the corner.  This creates the 3″ width of the bag.

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