Valentine’s Day Mini Treat Bag Tutorial

Have I told you before that I love a bit of love? Give me a heart or pink themed pro­ject any day of the week and I’ll be as happy as can be. Even more so when the pro­ject is meet­ing my scrap fab­ric goals for 2019!

These little treat bags are as cute as can be and, best of all.… they sew up so eas­ily. They make a per­fect little bag for Valentine’s Day candy and treats. 

If you’ve nev­er sewn French seams before you are going to love this simple meth­od of hid­ing seams. The tutori­al below will show you how it’s done.

Mini Treat Bag Tutorial

For this tutori­al you’ll find the cor­res­pond­ing image for each step below the explan­a­tion. There’s a quick video tutori­al which will give you the basics on how to make this pro­ject. If you prefer more detail, read on for the full tutorial.

Here’s what you will need to make a single Mini Treat Bag (3 ¹⁄₂″ x 4 ¹⁄₂″).

• Two pieces of cot­ton quilt­ing fab­ric 4 ¹⁄₂″ x 6″. You can cut the pieces from a single left over lay­er cake square — 10″ x 10″ — or from any oth­er scraps you have on hand.
• 6″ piece of cord or rope. I used pip­ing cord for some of mine.
• a safety pin for thread­ing the cord.
• gen­er­al sew­ing sup­plies such as a ruler, rotary cut­ter, scis­sors, pins, a point turner/chopstick and a pencil.

Turn a ¹⁄₄″ hem at the top (4 ¹⁄₂″ side) of each piece. Draw a light pen­cil line 1 ¹⁄₂″ from the top of each piece.

Place the two pieces togeth­er with wrong sides facing. Sew down one long side, across the bot­tom and then up the oth­er long side stop­ping 1 ¹⁄₂″ from the top. Use a ¹⁄₄″ seam allow­ance. Back­stitch at the end.

Trim the seams to ¹⁄₈″ with your rotary cut­ter and ruler.

Turn the bag out so that the right sides of the fab­ric are on the inside of the bag. Turn the corners out with a point turn­er or chop­stick. Press with a hot iron.

Sew down one long side, across the bot­tom and then up the oth­er long side stop­ping 1 ¹⁄₂″ from the top. Use a ¹⁄₄″ seam allow­ance. Back­stitch at the end. (Con­grat­u­la­tions! You’ve just cre­ated a French seam).

This next step is a little bit fiddly. Press a ¹⁄₈″ seam on the open edges. Turn the pressed seam over again so that the raw edge is hid­den. Pin in place and then sew along the seam to hold it in place.

Using the pen­cil line ¹⁄₂″ from the top of the fab­ric as a guide, fold the top edge of the bag down and pin in place.

Sew, using an ¹⁄₈″ seam allow­ance, along the turned edge. 

Thread the cord on to a safety pin. I find double thread­ing the cord (as shown) pre­vents the cord from unravelling. 

Thread the cord through the cord pock­et. Leav­ing a good amount of cord, tie a knot and trim the excess. I use a reef knot but you can use any knot you’re com­fort­able with.

Finally, man­oeuvre the cord so that the knot is hid­den inside the cord pocket. 

Once you’ve made one of these little bags I know you’ll want to make more. They are such a great use of scrap fab­ric and, they make the cutest little hand­made bag for Valentine’s Day treats or a simple gift. 

If you’re look­ing for even more Valentine’s Day craft ideas check out my But­ton Heart Cushion.

Or grab a copy of my book, A Piece of Cake, which has the Wrapped in Love Quilt. It’s one of my favourites!

Have a great week,