When I got home from my sewing weekend I showed my niece my stash of small zippered bags. Offered her one, she took two. She was going out that evening for dinner with a friend whose daughter was having a birthday – she took one for Fiona and another for her sister Dana. I took another and put a birthday gift in it for a friend of mine. Now I was down five bags from the collection intended to be for Christmas gifts.
My niece sees me put the gift in a bag and asks if I would make ten bags for her to use as gifts – she’ll pay me, she offers.
Can’t say no to a request like that, so after she left for Toronto the next day, I dug out what fabric I had left over from the original batch, prepared 10 more bags, sat down and stitched them up over the next two days.
Zippered Bags For Maxelle
Past Thursday, I packaged them up and sent them off to Toronto – as a gift for my niece. What am I going to charge her? $5 is too little and $10 is too much to ask her (although were I selling the bags at a craft fair I’d charge $10 for the smaller size, $12 for the larger ones). I was using leftover bits of fabric and batting, I buy zipper tape by the yard, so while I have an idea as to what my materials might cost there’s still nothing much to reimburse me for my time. Better a gift to my niece than try figuring out what to charge her.
She should get them next week. I told her to make sure she tells her friends where she got the bags! I’m sure whoever gets one will enjoy having it. You can’t have too many small zippered bags for carrying stuff, right?
jmn 
Could you point us again to your directions for these? And especially for the zipper material — how to get that “by the yard” and where you get your fasteners? Would much appreciate! Maybe you need to start selling PDF patterns on line??
I don’t have directions – I guess I’ll have to write some! I buy zipper tape (and slides) from “thezipperlady.com” – so far I’ve bought the #3 coil 1 yd.- 6 colours collections that come with slides. If you’re planning on doing a lot of zipper installation the 5 yd – pick 6 colours and add slides and it’s still W-A-Y less than buying zippers (even on sale) and Alicia has videos demonstrating how to put the slides on the tape. 1 yard of zipper tape makes 4 bags in the size I make with bits left over that I cut up to use as loops on the side of the bag. I’ll make one more bag, take photos as I construct it, so you can see how I do them. Tomorrow or the next day, OK?
Evonne, I took time today to make two new bags – one using zipper tape, a second using a zipper – so I could take photos to demonstrate how I make my bags. Here are the links to the PDF:
Version using Zipper Tape:Bags constructed With Zipper Tape
Version using Zippers
Bags constructed using Zippers
Those should help you. Since I started using zipper tape I definitely prefer that method – gives a much neater finish to the bag. Judith
I love your small bags. Even tho you showed me how to make them, I obviously need another lesson. Let’s have lunch soon.
M
Small bags are useful and make great gifts! And they’re fast to make, particularly when you have lots of leftover fabric and batting to work with.