Halloween Goody Bag

It’s close to Halloween but you don’t have a candy collection bag for your favorite trick-or-treater! If you have 15 minutes and a couple of Halloween-themed placemat, you can solve that problem.

Supplies for a Halloween Goody Bag

• Two Halloween-motif placemats – I used rectangular 1-layer burlap placemats but any shape will work. Scroll down to the end of this post to see one I made from 2 quilted octagonal placemats.
• 2 1/2 yards of 1”-wide grosgrain ribbon in a coordinating color
• Thread – I used orange thread to add a bit of color.

Stitching the Bag

With right sides together, pin or clip the two placemats together. Using about a 1/4″ seam allowance, stitch along the sides and across the bottom, forming the bag. Turn the bag to the right side. Optional: Fold the top edge about 1/4″ to the wrong side and stitch to hem it.

Making the Handles

Fold the ribbon in half and zigzag stitch along each long edge. I used an Open Embroidery Foot so I could easily see the edges of the ribbon as I stitched them. Set the stitch length at 2 mm and the width at 4-5 mm. Adjust the needle position to the far right. Place the ribbon under the foot, aligning the edge os the ribbon with the inside right toe of the presser foot.

Cut the stitched ribbon into 2 equal pieces. Position one handle on each side of the bag, placed 1 1/2″ down from the top and centered from side to side with about 8″ between each end.  Turn under the raw edges ½” and zigzag them in place. Stitch across the ribbon at the upper edge of the back. Repeat for the remaining handle on the other side of the bag.

Another Option

Here’s another version made with a quilted octagonal placemat.  The placemats were placed wrong sides together and stitched along the sides and bottom along the hemmed edge. I used 1 1/4″ yards of webbing instead of ribbon for the handles because the webbing is heavy enough to use one layer for the handles.

The only thing left is to watch out for goblins while collecting all those goodies!