These were initially made as an advent calendar – a mammoth thing that hangs down the length of our hall. The sacks, however, work really well as gift sacks or table favours so I’ve made a few extras since.

Each sack shows a British woodland Christmas scene. Many of the animals, like the woodpecker and the stag beetle, can be found in our London garden andmost are based on photographs that my wife has taken at home or on holidays:



swap fish for tinsel...

Although we’ve yet to see a hedgehog wearing a hat:

These are fantastically portable (an emerging theme of mine), and great for using up oddments of scraps. I'll post a tutorial in the next day or so.

Update: The tutorial for the sacks has been posted at The Sewing Directory (worth a good poke about while you're there) and I'm lazy enough to send you over there, rather than faff about with Google docs. Besides, I know that as soon as I open the file I'll find hundreds of things to improve. So here it is in its imperfect glory: http://www.thesewingdirectory.co.uk/small-gift-sacks/