Happy Easter! I didn’t get a chance to have this posted until Easter because I didn’t finish putting the draw string on the bag until last night.
I’m looking for something different to do this year for Easter, so I did my usual and took to Pinterest for inspiration. I was thinking of getting a big stuffed animal for each kid with a bag (instead of a basket) with the other goodies in it. With the larger stuffed animal I wanted a smaller bag, but one big enough to hold some candy and other small goodies.
I came across this blog that has an adorable bunny bag!: http://judith-justjude.blogspot.ca/2016/03/bunny-bags-part-2-tutorial.html
The instructions on the blog are really good, so I ended up “forgetting” to take a few of my normal pics. I did make one change in how I did one part, so I will go into more detail during that part.
The first change I made was increase the size. I outlined how big I wanted to cut each piece, and how many pieces. I made four bags because kids ask questions if the Easter Bunny doesn’t bring THEM stuff too…and aren’t we all kids at heart anyway? I didn’t have any fabric that screams “EASTER” and I wasn’t about to run out and get some, so I found fabric the kids would like.
After picking out the fabric, cut the pieces to size. I made my ears in between making the bag part, I like to always have something on the sewing machine, for me it saves thread. The quick overview is don’t sew the top two inches on both sides, but sew along the edges and bottom. Then line up the two seams to “flatten” out the bottom, and draw a 2 inch line. I used clips to keep the bottom in place and drew the line on both ends of each piece.
To take quick side trip to complete the ears! I used pattern paper and traced (on my iPad screen) the ear. This was frustrating because it’s a touch screen and kept changing…BUT I only drew half the ear, folded in half and cut it out. Make sure your front fabric is faceing each other, then draw the ear shape on all ears. Sew along the line, trim the extras, and turn inside out. I used a chopstick to get the shape of the tip of the ear crips. Then I ironed the tip of the ear while I made sure the end was flat along the seams. I let the Iron sit on it for a few minutes, then I quickly pushed in the open end so I could. Easily sew along it. Then sew along each end to finish the ears.
This is where it gets slightly different. I still clip/pin the flaps together (forgot to take this pic). Make sure to always only sew two pieces of fabric together at all times! I started at the end of one flap, this would be the back flap that I would iron and sew it closed while I sew it against the bag. Then the tricky part gets when you sew along the short side you will start to hit the edge of the bag that you’ve already sewn, so you need to flip fabric over to move onto the next flap. (Top left) Once you get right up to the part already sewn, stop and leave the needle in and lift up th foot. (Top right) Carefully flip over the top piece. (Bottom left) as you can tell there is still one more piece, do the same and pull that piece over to the back. (Bottom right) As you can tell you now only have two pieces. You need to do that twice on each piece. When you get to the end, make sure to leave a space to flip the bag right side out.
Turn the bag right side out, this can be challenging if you leave too small of a hole to flip right side out. I tend to leave about a 2 inch hole and it worked great.
Then, use a chopstick to finish turning the flaps right side out, making the corners nice and crips! After using the chopstick to get the corners turned out, use the iron to make the seam nice and crisp.
Find the side with the hole you used to flip the bag right side out. Fold that piece inside to the seam and sew along the edge, that will attach the piece to the side and it will finish the open hole. Make sure to pin this straight, if you don’t you may end up like me and not have a straight line sewn on the outside. After you finish sewing the one side, flip it over and fold over the other end. Then place two ears on top of the end, making sure the end of the ear lines up with the bottom of the piece folded over. I used clips to keep the ears in place. Sew along the bottom edge, just like you did with the other side.
Here is what mine look like at this step. At this point it was almost time for the kids to get home, so I set it aside and finished the last part later.
Run two pieces of string through the top, I ran one string through one side, then two strings through the second side. I tied the first string closed on the end and ran the second string through the last piece and tied it closed on the opposite side.