Bag mania again

Way back in January I bought some fabric pieces from the Guild trading table, took them home and cut them into bag-sized pieces immediately. Last Christmas there had been a demand for large bags. The appeal of these pieces had been their size, so I prioritised large bags in this batch.

While I was on a roll I ironed the whole pile int ready-to stitch format, side seams and Fraser string channels all neatly pressed ready to sew. 

The large pile sat on my sewing machine until this week. On Saturday I decided it was time to clear them away, and set to to stitch them.

I like to do this in production line mode, creating a big pile of stitched bags, then finding draw cords for each of them which I cut and place inside each, then spend an evening or so threading the cords. Bags that have channels open on both sides get two cords, each of which can be knotted together to form a dual drawstring. 

Left is my pile ready for two cords.  I ended up making 54 bags, 35 of them with 2 cords. Right is that finished pile.

 Those that open at only one end need stoppers on the ends of the cord to prevent them disappearing back inside the channel. So I then find stoppers for each remaining bag, and finally attach those to the chords in the remaining pile.

I have used beads. buttons, wooden toggles, shells and some ribbon flowers. 

            

There's a lot I like in this collection but the one I'm most pleased with is this one, made from around 2 metres of cheesecloth that I dyed and stamped in 2015 at a Guild class by Barbara Mullan.  I think it was meant to be a shawl. I recently found it while cleaning out drawers. 

It was too thin to be used in a single layer bag, so I doubled it and stitched the two sides together. Even halved, it was large. I folded it in half again,   stitched three sides together and created a wide hem for a cord on the open side. A wide ribbon, and this is a really big bag for a big gift.

I can now send some to family members and put the rest away with the Christmas decorations, ready for the high demand period.