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My daughter is skilled enough that most of the crafting she needs for her Halloween costumes she can do herself, but I wanted to make a felt bag to coordinate with her outfit and give her a cute candy bag if she needed it.
Her school does a Halloween concert so she was also able to use this easy felt bag as a purse for that event.
The Inspiration
The teen decided she wanted to be Daisy Head Mayzie from Dr. Seuss for Halloween, and the hardest part was finding a dress that was sort of evocative of that character.
She crafted the daisy growing out of her head from felt and a pipe cleaner wrapped around a headband.
I realized we had a pretty good stash of both white and yellow felt, so I decided I wanted to make her a daisy bag. You could do this same thing with any theme, though, by making the felt bag and then adding whatever decoration is appropriate.
Materials
To keep it simple the front and back of the bag are the size of a standard sheet of felt. The gussets on the sides and the bottom of the bag are 4 inches/10cm wide and the length or width of the felt sheet, respectively.
Straps you can make whatever size you want, but mine are about an inch/2.5 cm wide and the length of the fabric.
You’ll need a sewing machine and thread, or hand sewing supplies, as well as some fabric glue. You could sew all of it but I was in a hurry and Tacky Glue worked just fine for attaching the flower to the front of the felt bag. A pair of fabric scissors and thread snips, as well as some pins or sewing clips, are also really helpful.
Felt Bag Sewing Pattern
Start by cutting out all your pieces if you haven’t already. Decide which side is the front and pin one side panel to one front or back panel, right/front sides together.
Sew these pieces together and repeat with the other front/back piece. If you want to sew by hand instead of using a sewing machine, blanket stitch is a great choice (and you can do it either on the inside or the outside of the bag, whatever you prefer).
Then repeat with the other side piece, making sure your seams are all ending up on the inside of the bag (which is what will happen if you sew with the fronts together).
Pin the bottom of the bag to the bottom of all of the pieces you just sewed, again with what will be the front/outside of the bag pieces facing each other.
Sew all the way around, taking care at the corners to try to keep everything as flat as possible and sew through all the layers.
You can do the classic pivot turn at the bottom where you stop sewing and crank the needle so it’s in the fabric.
Then turn the fabric to sew down the next side.
Pin the straps where you want them to go and sew them on. I did this by sewing a square on top of the base of the handle to make it more secure.
Embellishing the Bag
Of course you can keep your felt bag simple if you want, but I love this as an idea for coordinating with a Halloween costume or other outfit.
As I mentioned, in this case I wanted to make a daisy, so I used a lid to make the circle with yellow felt. I hand drew a petal template and cut out enough petals to go around the circle.
I intentionally made the flower a little bigger than the bag, and I attached the petals to the circle and then the flower to the bag with fabric glue. I started by gluing the center to the (roughly) middle of the bag, then folded over the petals and put enough glue on the top petals to keep them from flopping down when the bag is carried. The lower petals aren’t glued down at all.
You could do this same thing with any felt shape or shapes to coordinate with a costume. Make a red bag with black circles for a ladybug costume, or cut out the face of the superhero or movie character your kiddo is portraying.
It could also be an accessory that coordinates with an outfit, like if your child is a cookie it could be a glass of milk (just thinking about a white bag again, but you get the idea).
And of course you can make felt bags that are seasonal rather than coordinating with an outfit. Add a bunny face and ears for an Easter bag, or make holiday gift bags out of felt decorated with Christmas trees, snowflakes or other seasonal shapes.
Once you know how quickly and easily you can sew a felt bag I’ll bet you’ll come up with lots of reasons to make them!
