Are you ready to sew some gift bags this holiday season? It's almost time for our annual Lined Drawstring Bag Sew Along! Using drawstring bags to wrap your gifts is a great way to reduce the amount of single-use wrapping paper you need. Every year is an opportunity to build up your stash of bags and use up some of the beautiful fabrics you probably have kicking around in your fabric stash! Within our immediate family, we keep reusing the same bags year after year. I love pulling my older bags out and adding new ones to the mix. I hope you'll sew along with me and make a few bags this year!

This year's sew along is going to look a little different, since we're moving in the middle of November. I have pushed the start date for the sew along one week and most notably, I am not currently shipping any notions. I hope that after we land in PA I can reopen that part of my shop, but that's a bit up in the air at the moment. I'll be sure to update you all if I'm able to make that happen. Now, onto the details!

When:
The Lined Drawstring Bag Sew Along will officially kick off on Wednesday, November 26th and will run for four weeks!

Where:
Each week of the sew along I'll publish a blog post with a new tutorial or informational post. Here is the dedicated sew along page, which I'll update as we go along. It's a great place to find all the posts from previous year's sew alongs, there is so much good information and inspiration there, so be sure to check it out.

How to Participate:
As always, this sew along is casual and no-stress. Participating is easy, we'll be using Instagram to share our progress. Please tag me @jenib320 too, I love sharing your projects throughout the sew along! Not on Instagram? That's okay! Please join in the sew along and if you'd like, share your bags with me via email! (jenib320 at gmail.com)

Patterns & Tutorial:

Sew from the free tutorial, the pattern or the expansion pattern! Both patterns are 20% off today through 11/19/25. Prices are already marked down.

Shop Patterns:
Lined Drawstring Bag Pattern
Lined Drawstring Bag Expansion Pattern

Thank you for your continued support. Can't wait to sew bags together!

Happy Sewing!

Shop News: Moving Sale!

Happy Friday! Things have been a bit busy behind the scenes over here as we prepare to move to PA. We're in the process of finding a place to live (fingers crossed), listing our current house on the market, decluttering, packing and managing regular life with a toddler. I'm also working on our annual Lined Drawstring Bag Sew Along, because I just can't miss it!!

This has left very little time for sewing lately. I wanted to destash a lot more stuff before our move, but I'm quickly running out of time I did want to share what I have been able to list in my online shop! I've lowered the prices of most of it, so there is something at most price points! And all physical orders still come with free mini patterns while supplies last!


I have a couple of scrap bags left, specifically solids and flannel scraps. US shipping is included in the prices on those.




I just reduced the prices on all of my remaining vintage sheet fat quarter bundles! There are some good ones still left.


If you'd like a surprise, I have mystery fat quarter bundles too.


And mystery seconds fat quarter bundles that have noticeable stains, holes, etc.


And finally a few more scrap packs of narrow hems. Make yourself a wrapped wreath with one!

All of these things can be found here: Jeni Baker Patterns. I would say hopefully I'll be back soon with some sewing updates, but who knows! It's going to be a wild next couple of months!

Quilted Tea Towel Pillow Cover

I have another recent pillow project to share! I thrifted this vintage tea towel so long ago that I can't even find a photo of it! Honestly, it could have been 15 years ago for all I remember. I know I've had it for a really long time. Last month I decided it was finally time to make it into something! This idea was fueled by thrifting a long rectangular pillow form. I realized that this tea towel was pretty much the perfect size for a cover.



I knew I wanted to use an invisible zipper for this cover so that it would be a double sided pillow. Lucky me, I had this geometric canvas print by Ellen Luckett Baker in my stash that coordinated nicely in color and design to the tea towel. I started this project by quilting both pieces. After cutting them both to size, I used my serger to finish all the edges.



Ta-da! The finished result! I love how it turned out. Such a simple project, but so satisfying. The tea towel is so funky, I am very glad that it is out of storage and living its life as a pillow cover!


And the other size is fun too. I started working on this pillow after our local JoAnn fabrics closed and honestly had a hard time sourcing an invisible zipper that matched and was long enough. My Mom brought me one from her stash, but while she was visiting we went to Ecoworks, our local craft thrift store and they had the perfect match! It's the same color blue as the back of the pillow and the length was just right. It's like it was meant to be. My application of it could have been better, but that's okay. I haven't installed that many invisible zippers in pillows, so I just need some more practice!

If we're keeping track, this project used a thrifted pillow insert, thrifted tea towel, and thrifted zipper! :)

Happy Sewing!

Quick Note for My Email Subscribers

Dear Friends, I realized today that my email subscription service has not been working properly. For the last few years I have been paying for a service (Follow.it) to be able to send you full blog posts via email without ads. Unbeknownst to me, my account was reverted back to the basic free plan which simply sends a notification email with ads. I was still paying into my account every month, which is why I did not notice the change sooner.

I have (hopefully!) fixed this issue. Future posts should show up in full in your inbox again, without any ads.

Take care,
Jeni