#sewing tutorials

How To Sew Fabric Boxes Without A Pattern

Welcome to December and time for the Christmas Crunch. That lovely time of year when the count down to Christmas really hits crafters. Well here are a bunch of quick and easy last minute things you can make. These babies can be made using up scraps, leftover fabric, or fat quarters.

First off for the quilters and seamstress is hot pads, bow cozies, casserole dish cozies, pie cozies, and bowl covers. They make great gifts for those that cook or bake. Also very lovely to pair with the edible gifts or hostess gift for Christmas dinner.

First I showed my concept, now we're going to measure and cut out the pieces!

So I'm going to vocational college for graphic design, so I need a bag to hold a lot of books and papers. My largest paper pad I've used so far is this Bristol Board, so that's what were going go use to measure about how big to make it!

First you take your largest item and lay it on the fabric, and draw the shape of the bag around it, remembering to have extra material for seam allowance, and "opps I fucked up and now the edges are all frazzled"

(I forgot to mention that the canvas and other materials I have is doubled, from when they cut it off the bolt, so you only need the cut out the outer material once if that's the case for you.)

It's likely I'll trim this down a bit later, but its better to have more than you need, then less that you have to go back and get.

Next, stack the stuff you need in it and either take a leftover piece of material or paper and mark how wide the sides need to be. I had some leftover canvas that was about the width of the stuff I had, so I used it as a starting point.

From the bottom of the material I marked where the top of the lenght was, pretty much just made a line where I the top corner was.

Here I marked the width of the bag, but unfortunately I didn't have enough material to have one continuous line for the whole bag. But, since this material is folded, I can just mark about the middle of the bottom and have two halves.

Next, the Tazer Pocket I want to add to throw side.

The one on my messenger bag was fine, that one I top sewed the folded edges closer together so it wouldn't be completely flat on the side, if that makes sense.

But this time we're making side seams so it doesn't go inside the bag a bit, if that makes sense also.

Repeat the steps like with the Bristol board, giving plenty of seam allowance and trimming room. This scrap price was perfect to use, and I had enough to also use it for the side seam.

I folded that material hotdog style and that looked to be enough for the side seam, so it's good enough for me! If it messes up later it can be a snack pocket lol.

Next, I want to make a drawstring bag on the opposite side for trinkets or chapstick or whatever the hell, so I cut out a piece that was a little bigger than the side of the bag, which looking now I'll likely trim a bit of the lenght off later.

Sooooo, I forgot to take a picture of makeing the front flap for the bag. Since I used up the 10 image limit of the post, I'll make a drawing of how I made that later.