A Drawstring-bagalicious Retreat, Part I

September 6, 2021September 6, 2021 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Before I get into this post, I just want to clarify for anyone reading this in which English is not your primary language, that “bagalicious” is not a real word – ha!

“Drawstring-bagalicious” was the best way I can describe a small quilt retreat I attended at a beautiful location in Shelton Washington in August 2021 with my friends Judy and Dana where we ended up making drawstring bags for 3 days!

We stayed at The Riptide Retreat, a house/retreat center right on the waterfront:

I think for this post I will focus on our drawstring bag making obsession during our retreat and next post share the photos of the beautiful waterfront, the inside of the quilt retreat center, the awesome quilt shop we visited, and the yummy place we ate.

We each brought projects to work on at the retreat, and I brought some pre-cut and pre-fused fabric to make a couple drawstring bags.

Well you know how crafters are when we get together – before you knew it everyone wanted to make drawstring bags and put their planned projects aside.

Judy made several lovely bags (5 or 6 total) but the photo I took of them included some surprises/gifts for mutual friends, so I am not going to post the photo of her bags.

I will just share images of some of the bags Dana and I made.

Here are Dana’s first set of drawstring bags, including some fun photoshoots she did with her completed bags:

Dana started out making one extra large drawstring bag with the Ruby Star/Sarah Watts fabric – Purl (which I now own in several colorways the fabric is so yummy!) and then she became obsessed and made them in every size from on the pattern (we all got the pattern for the drawstring bags by Sotak Handmade)!

I plan to totally copy Dana’s interpretation of the pattern design and make the same drawstring bag. The photos do not do it justice – it was so freakin’ cute!

She went on and made more and along the way we worked out ways to make the drawstring bags faster and more efficiently. We basically had a Drawstring Bag Workshop! I can now make them in my sleep!

Here is an example of a trick to make sure the seams stay flat that Judy came up with and Dana used on one of her bags – press the seams open during early assembly:

Dana also got creative on her drawstring bag design and started added labels made from the fabric selvage:

Another idea I am totally stealing when I make more bags in the future.

Here are more of Dana’s completed bags and her fun photoshoots on the deck against the waterfront:

And here are some of the bags I made and some fun photoshoots I took with the waterfront in the background off the back deck:

If you haven’t figured this out from the photos, part of the fun of making the drawstring bags is not only selecting the external/outside bag fabric but also choosing a coordinating interior fabric. We had fun sharing fabrics and picking up more from the local quilt shop! We also had fun selecting the ribbon/cord for the drawstrings and went on shopping adventure one day just to buy more drawstring materials! Yes we were obsessed!

We even made the same bags when we’d seen another’s completed drawstring bag and want to make it also (any everyone was so generous with sharing their fabric and our dwindling supply of interfacing).

More to come on our retreat to including what we did when we weren’t sitting around making drawstring bags (and photographing them)!

Published by tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Quilter, crafter, obsessive tea drinker and lover of all furry creatures (especially dogs and cats) - join me on my tierneycreates blog as I share stories from "A Crafter's Life". View all posts by tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles