Scrappy drawstring gift bag |Keeping it Real

Hello, and welcome. Today I'm sharing here one of my latest sewing projects: a scrappy drawstring bag that I'll be using as a gift bag:

This bag is similar to the lined drawstring bags I shared a tutorial for here a while ago, but since I was using small scraps of fabric, the casings for the drawstrings were sewn between the lining and the exterior fabric.

I didn't take photos of the whole process, but basically what I did was to sew the fabric scraps directly onto rectangles of batting and then assembled them just as I would with flat bottom lined tote bag (you can check my basic lined tote bag tutorial here).

Scrappy drawstring gift bag

The difference is that instead of tucking tote bag handles between the lining and the exterior of the bag, I added folded rectangles of fabric to make the casings for the strings. And then, instead top stitching all around using my sewing machine, I decided to do it by hand.

Lining is made with two larges pieces of fabric that have seen multiple uses before: they were part of a crib sized duvet cover my mother-in-law bought for my son when he was a baby. Later, when both my kids outgrew the crib, I disassembled the duvet cover and used the fabric to make pajama pants for my daughter. And now I'm using what's still around of that fabric to make these gift bags.

This means that all materials used in making the bag (including the batting and the yarn for the strings) were leftovers from other projects.

I sized this bag in order to use it to wrap books. I love buying books to give as gifts over the holidays, and it's been a while since I bought regular wrapping paper - reusable gift bags are the way to go!