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Christmas Poinsettia Gift Bag Pattern | English Paper Piecing

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Get ready for Christmas with Debbie Shore's festive gift bag with appliquéd poinsettia flower.

An attractive gift presentation shows you care about the recipient enough to go the extra mile and helps enhance the value of the contents. Plus, a gift bag pattern like this can be reused, so it’s ecological too.

The poinsettia on this Christmas gift bag project is made with a simple English Paper Piecing technique, based on just two paper shapes. All you have to do is wrap fabric around the paper shapes then hand-stitch them together before removing the papers. I’ve used a glue stick to secure the fabric around my papers for simplicity – traditionally you would have hand-tacked (basted) through the papers then removed the tacking stitches afterwards.

I’ve used linen and linen-mix fabrics for my project, but it would work well with plain or Christmas printed fabrics too! Linen has quite a loose weave, so the stitches are visible, which I think gives a rustic, handmade look.

Interfacing may not be necessary if you are using cotton fabric and prefer a softer bag, but I find it stabilizes looser weaves of fabric, preventing fabrics from twisting as you sew.

Once you’ve made one poinsettia you may wish to make more: the appliqué could be repeated around a tablecloth or tree skirt and the larger and smaller ‘flowers’ could be used individually. You can add as many leaves as you like!

If hand-stitching isn’t for you, sew the pieces together with a narrow zigzag stitch on your sewing machine, then machine sew to the bag with straight stitch or even blanket stitch.

Note: use a ¼in (5mm) seam allowance.

Finished size: 11½ x 12 x 4in (29 x 30.5 x 10cm)

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You will need:

Equipment

• Sewing machine with a standard foot 
• Fabric glue stick 
• Photocopy paper for your paper patterns 
• The templates 

Materials

• 14 x 8in (35.5 x 20cm) of fabric for the red bracts: I used dark pink Jinkie rayon linen fabric 
• 3 x 4in (7.5 x 10cm) of fabric for the leaf: I used olive Jinkie rayon linen 
• 24 x 14in (61 x 35.5cm) of fabric of the outer bag: I used natural linen 
• 24 x 14in (61 x 35.5cm) of medium-weight interfacing: I used Vlieseline G700 
• 24 x 14in (61 x 35.5cm) of fabric for the lining: I used dark pink Jinkie rayon linen 
• Two 16 x 3in (40.5 x 7.5cm) strips of fabric for the channels: I used more olive Jinkie rayon linen 
• Two 30in (76cm) lengths of ribbon or cord  
• ½in (1.25cm) button – or a small group of seed beads would look good 
• Safety pin or bodkin to help thread the ribbon through the channels 
• Matching threads 

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