How to Make a Wine Gift Bag

When Cidell and I ordered our tie silk from Fabric Mart, most of the silks were quite lovely but we got one real dog, a wine cork print. Cidell was going to use it for muslins, but when I realized it would be perfect for making wine gift bags she handed it off to me. On Saturday I had a holiday party to go to. I don't have a car and take the metro everywhere. When I'm bringing a host(ess) gift of a bottle of wine I don't want to just carry a bottle of wine around the city for all to see so I can either carry a big purse or put it in a bag of some sort. I didn't want to wear a giant handbag with my festive outfit (I wore a completely disastrous velvet skirt I will shamefacedly reveal later in the week), so it was time to bust out the tie silk and make a quickie wine bag. Last year I posted a tutorial for a wine gift bag with a pocket. This is the completely simple, no-frills wine gift bag.

Start by cutting a piece of fabric 12 inches wide and 16 inches long. This will make a gift bag for a standard size bottle of wine. If you get a larger bottle or one with an unusual shape, you'll need to adjust your starting size to accommodate.

Next, sew down the long (16 inch) side with a 1/4 inch seam allowance (run the edge of your foot along the edge of the fabric); pivot at the bottom and sew the bottom edge with a 1/4" seam allowance as well. Finish your edges with a serger or zigzag if your fabric will ravel. Then finish the top. I had hoped to use the selvage here as the finished top edge but it wasn't a sturdy selvage. Since I have a serger I just serged along the top edge before sewing the side seam. If you don't have a serger and can't use the finished selvage as the top, you can zigzag along the top and turn under in a narrow hem.

Now you're going to mark the gussets. You can easily skip this part, but I think it makes the bag look a little nicer. Mark the center of the bottom, and two inches up from the bottom on each side. You will sew between these markings, as indicated by the white lines in the photograph. This gives the bottom of the bag a more rounded shape so no corners are sticking out when the bottle is inserted and standing up. You can trim off the gusset corners, but I didn't.

The last thing to do is sew on a ribbon for tying it closed. First you need to mark your ribbon placement. Slip the bottle inside the bag and mark the spot where the neck and shoulders of the bottle meet--where the bottle starts to slope out. If you have cut a 12x16 rectangle and have a standard bottle, this will be 5 inches from the top. Cut a ribbon long enough to tie in an attractive bow--here I cut 18 inch lengths. Slide your bag over your sewing machine's free arm and tack the ribbon at the marked spot using a short stitch length and a narrow zigzag.

And you're done! You can check out all the photos here. Now which guest would you rather be?