Getting ready for Crafternoon

Last year's fabric gift bags in action.

Do you end up with a mountain of shredded wrapping paper, plastic ribbon & stacks of crumpled paper gift bags by noon on Christmas Day? Sadly, most of it isn't even recyclable. Even if it's made of recycled fibres & you recycle it again, there's a lot of energy & water used in the whole process. The solution to this is cloth!

Last year I started on a collection of fabric gift bags for our family to use for wrapping gifts to each other. I say 'started', because I plan to add a few this year, maybe next year too. These bags could be used to give gifts to other people, but I think many of them will just stay in our family & get used year after year, along with the tree decorations, the lights & all the other holiday trappings.

After my sister requested I make some for her Christmas, I decided to add them to the lineup of ANEW products. They'll make their 'debut' this weekend at Crafternoon & then I'll probably add them to my Etsy shop too.

Small gift wraps 

So yesterday I trekked out to Southeast Marine Drive to Fabricland, as I wasn't all that impressed with the Christmas fabric selection at Dressew. I came home with ten metres of flannel prints after hemming & hawing over the vast selection of Christmas cottons there.

Medium gift bags

Today I got down to work when Sprout went down for his (surprisingly lengthy) nap. I designed, cut & sewed nine medium sized gift bags, plus 15 small sized gift wraps. The 18"x12" bags are designed something like a large envelope with a zipper closure on the flap. The 12"x12" wraps are a square of flannel with ribbon or ric-rac ties at two corners which can be wrapped around a small gift.
Hopefully I'll have time tomorrow to sew the larger sized bags I'm planning as well as a whole schwack of bandanna bibs.