How – To Make a Fabric Drawstring Herb Bag

What you will need to make one fabric herb bag:

· A piece of your choice of fabric measuring 4 x 12 inches

· Thread to match your fabric

· Fabric scissors

· Length of thin Cord (16 inches)

· A piece of plain fabric for the label (we used a white canvas fabric) measuring 1 x 2 inches

· Approx 50cm of embroidery floss (to sew your fabric label on)

· Needle

I’ve had some emails asking me about the fabric bags that were last seen in this post. As soon as I found out that there were butchers hooks in the new kitchen I knew that I could finally get away from the ‘too many glass herb jars in the cupboard’ syndrome and I did so with these cute hanging herb bags.

Thank you for your emails and here are the instructions on how to make them….

Depending on how many herb bags you decide to make, will depend on how much fabric you will need. The beauty of these herb bags is that you can make them as big or as small as you like.

The instructions below are for a herb bag that is 4 x 12 inches & the size you see in the pictures.

To make the bag:

You will need to cut a piece of your chosen fabric measuring 4inches in width and 12 inches in length.

At both ends of the fabric, fold and then iron a hem measuring no more than 0.5cm; the purpose of this is to create a small hem to stop the opening of the herb bag from fraying.
Machine or hand sew this hem.

You will then need to fold another hem which should measure one inch. This will serve as the channel for the drawstring cord to feed through.

Once you have hemmed the fabric, cut a piece of cord measuring 16 inches and feed it through the inch wide hem, tying together in a knot at the end. Note: The fabric should be inside out for this. See pic below.

Once the cord is in place, the sides of the bag will need to be sewn up. Ensuring the bag is inside out, stitch the opposite side of the bag from where the knot is.
For the other side of the bag you must ensure that the cord is poking through on the inside of the bag, as when you turn the bag the right way out when it is sewn up it will mean that the cord is then poking out on the outside of the bag.
Stitching up the other side of the bag is a little trickier, starting from the bottom of the bag you need only to sew up to the hem just before your needle is about to meet the cord (inside the hem.) If you are using a machine for this, carefully lift up the presser foot and the needle and push the bag through the machine until you can feel that the cord is on the other side of the needle, then set the presser foot down again onto the fabric and continue to sew until you reach the end (top).
You are then ready to turn the bag back the right way. Although both sides of the herb bag are stitched securely together, you will have still left a small hole open for the cord to come out from, thus enabling the bag to be used for a drawstring purpose.

For the fabric labels we used a plain white canvas material and cut the labels to measure 1 x 2 inches, which is a perfect size for writing out your chosen herb or spice’s. Handwriting the labels adds a certain rusticity that I love!

We kept it simple and secured the label in place with just four cross-stitches; one at each corner.
Place your dried herbs in to a small plastic bag. Tie up so that it’s air tight in there and place in to your freshly sewn bag. Hang from butchers hooks, cup hangers or any corner you can find.

These fabric herb bags are relatively quick and simple to make and you can make them to accessorize YOUR kitchen PERFECTLY. I don’t know about you but I think there is nothing uglier than those boring glass jars that you buy dried herbs in. The labels always face the wrong way in the cupboard and you inadvertently buy double of something because you had no idea you already had some!

***********************************************************

Join my brand new Facebook page!

Cherry Menlove

Promote your Page too