How to Upgrade and Upcycle a Plain Cloth Packaging Bag
/Take a plain and simple cloth packaging bag, embellish it with some pretty fabric scraps to make a lovely and useful drawstring bag.
A few months ago our daughter gave me a couple of cloth bags, hoping I could “do something with them”. She had bought some new bed linen which came in a simple plain grey bag with an elasticated top made from the same poly cotton fabric as the bed linen.
Today I’m joining the Do It Over Designer challenge with a tutorial to show you how I “did over” this simple little packaging bag and turned it into a pretty drawstring bag that can be used for all sorts of things. I’m thinking I might use this as a reusable gift bag for a special birthday, then the recipient can decide whether to keep it as a gift bag and pass it along or keep it for themselves.
To upgrade and upcycle this plain little cloth bag first I had a rummage through my patchwork bag that I use to keep all my part finished hand sewing projects. It’s stuffed with EPP shapes, scraps of fabric and several part done EPP patchwork projects. I found a few hexagons in pastel colours that I must have prepared several years ago - I can’t for the life of me remember what I was going to make with these hexagons - so this seemed like a good opportunity to use them.
You are unlikely to have a bag exactly the same as mine to upcycle but let me show you what I did to transform this plain bag into something much prettier and more useful. You will be able to adapt the idea to work with any plain bag you might have.
Upcycle a plain cloth packaging bag into an embelished drawstring bag
You will need:
A small plain cloth packaging bag
Thin card for your EPP shapes - old greeting cards are ideal for this
Small pieces of pretty fabric
Sewing machine, thread, needle and scissors
Create a patchwork drawstring channel
The plain cloth bag I had to upcycle used to have elastic around the top which had been removed a while ago so I decided to add a patchwork fabric drawstring channel.
Start by working out the length you need for your channel. Measure all around the top of your bag then add 1” (2.5cm) to this measurement. My bag measures 14” all the way round so my channel measurement is 15”.
Cut rectangles of fabric 3.5” high and any width, then sew these pieces together to form a long strip the length you’ve just calculated.
Turn a narrow double hem at each of the short ends. Press all the seams flat.
Lay the patchwork strip to the top of your bag, right sides together and pin all the way round. Start and finish the patchwork drawstring channel by a side seam, this is where the drawstring will be threaded. Stitch all the way round the top.
Turn and press a small hem on the other long side of the patchwork strip.
Fold the strip over so the edges are level and sew all the way round the top of the bag again.
Create a drawstring
You can use a ribbon or cord for your drawstring or create a fabric one as I did.
To make a fabric drawstring take a length of fabric that is 1” (2.5cm) wide and approximately 4 times the width of your bag. Fold and press the long fabric strip like bias binding, with the 2 long sides folded in to the middle. Then fold the whole thing in half and stitch all the way along the strip.
To finish the drawstring nicely I added a little fabric tab to each end. You can read a full tutorial explaining how to add cute little tabs here: How to make fabric tabs. They are not essential, you can finish your drawstring with a knot, but they are super cute. Don’t forget to thread the drawstring through the channel (use a safety pin) BEFORE you add any tabs though or they’ll get in the way!
EPP patchwork applique
If you want to decorate your bag with hexagon patchwork similar to mine then you need to prepare a hexagon applique. You need 7 hexagons, I already had a selection of prepared hexagons to applique to my plain bag. If you’ve not tried EPP or English Paper Piecing before you can find all the details you need to prepare and then sew your hexagons together here - How to Sew EPP Hexagons by Hand.
Once the applique is stitched together and ready you’ll need to press it well before you remove the card papers. It should hold its shape as you pin it in place and then stitch it all around the edge. I did this by hand as the bag was too small to get comfortably under my sewing machine needle. It was a nice “while I watch tv” type project.
That’s it, a plain “bag” that some bedding came in transformed into a pretty drawstring bag.
Now let’s take a look at the other ideas shared by my creative friends in the “Do It Over” Designers Challenge.
