My sister’s birthday present, pt 2

 

The apron wasn’t the only thing I made for my little sister–I also made her a couple pair of shoe bags.  Shoe bags are very simple to make and I think a nice gift for any adult person who ever travels and doesn’t want clean clothes and street shoes to come into contact.  I used flannel from a local quilt shop–1/2 yard per pair of shoe bags.  If I were making shoe bags for a man, I’d probably make them a bit longer–maybe using 5/8 ” fabric.   It’s handy to have a shoe handy to help gauge the length and width needed.   I ripped on the cross wise grain at each end of the half yard piece and then on the lengthwise grain halfway across to make two equal sized rectangles.  The tie die bags are slightly shorter because I also ripped crosswise strips to make two drawstrings (which I didn’t use for her bags but I did use for some bags I made for my own shoes:

One bag has a shoe in it. 

I folded each rectangular piece in half and sewed up the long edge opposite the fold and one end.  I finished the seams with a serger, pressed the seams, then folded over a casing at the open edge (folding the raw edge in as well).  At one end of each casing, I unfolded the casing and sewed the folded over raw edge for about an inch (not catching it into the bag).  This was my opening for the drawstring.  I folded the casing back in and stitched around, except for the drawstring opening. 

For my sister’s drawstring, I took a synthetic drawstring type trim I’d bought and cut it to the right length.  I used a match to melt the ends so they wouldn’t fray, and then used a safety pin to insert the drawstrings into the casings.  I tied the ends into a knot and turned the drawstring so that the knot was inside the casing.  I then inserted the looped drawstring into the cord lock by looping a piece of thread around the drawstring and threading the cord lock with the thread, then pulling the drawstring through.   The drawstrings for my shoe bags were sewn and turned fabric tubes, inserted and knotted the same way, but I did not attach cord locks. 

For the gift bags, I attached cards:

A little faint, but I think still readable.  I love to attach little tags to things I make for gifts.