kojotutorial: drawstring trick-or-treat bag from a repurposed tshirt

As promised- here’s the tutorial for a super-simple treat bag for trick-or-treating or fall festivals or whatever you and your family might be up to this weekend… Really, the pumpkin applique is the only time-consuming part (but let’s be honest, it’s also the part Burke loves best).

You’ll need:
-a Goodwill bound tshirt
-ribbon
-sewing machine and thread
-orange and green scraps of felt

1. Cut your tshirt below the sleeves. Sew top end into a drawstring casing.

3. Thread a ribbon through your casing. After it is threaded all the way through, tie the ends together. Shimmy these ends back into the casing so you can’t see them.

4. If you’re wanting to make this a ‘two handled’ bag, snip another opening in the casing on the side of the bag without an opening. Thread a ribbon ‘handle’ out through the opening.

To make the pumpkin applique:

1. Cut a pumpkin out of felt.

3. Tuck little snips of ribbon vertically behind your horizontal ribbon strips. Sew to secure. Repeat until entire pumpkin is covered in snips of ribbon. Trim around pumpkin shape if ribbon is hanging past the edges (so you can see that it’s a pumpkin, not a random mass of ribbon scraps).

4. Using a zigzag stitch, sew around the entire applique to attach the pumpkin to your drawstring bag.

DONE! Let your little-one-with-a-serious-affection-for-pumpkins fill his new bag with toys, books and other assorted goodies until you need it for treats next weekend. 🙂