DIY Christmas Gift Ideas: 10 Free Sewing Tutorials
Are you getting ready for Christmas? Making any DIY plans? I always love to get inspiration and I’m a big fan of handmade gifts. What is more thoughtful than sewing beautiful things for the ones you love?
Here’s some inspiration to get you started! DIY crafts don’t have to be expensive. In this article you’ll find links to 10 free tutorials. Some are ours that we published on the Madam Sew Sewing and Quilting Blog over the years and others I have tested and approved from other blogs. They are all free, that is what counts here.
I’ve grouped them in
- cozy winter crafts,
- season crafts, and
- zero waste crafts.
Hope you find the inspiration you are looking for here! If not, let me know in the comments and I'll see what I can do :-)
I made the following five items, that are featured in this blog, in just a couple of hours:
- 5 make-up wipes,
- 5 tea bags,
- 2 soap hangers,
- 4 bread bags, and
- a pair of mittens.
Now I have a small gift stash. That can always come in handy!
You can batch-make a lot of these. If you cut all the fabric pieces (with a rotary cutter) and gathered the other notions, like ribbons & little pieces of cord beforehand, you can do this in one night of sewing.
The assembly was really easy!
I hope there are some craft ideas in this article that will get you started.. Tonight! :-)
1. Cozy Winter Crafts
Find the softest thick and warm fabrics to make your friends and family slippers, a cute cap, or cozy mittens to keep them warm during those cold winter days. The MadamSew Slippers are made from an old green jumper and grey fleece for the lining.
The hat and mittens are from Purl Soho. They have some great free content on their site as well as beautiful fabrics. Go check that out!
How cute is this? Family twinning time! A warm and soft hat for both kids and adults.
Make these in whichever fabric you like, as long as it has some stretch. I used a soft interlock knit, but some fleece or an old sweater will do the trick as well! You just print the pattern, copy the 2 x 3 pieces on your fabric, assemble, and they’re ready!
These are the ones I made:
2. Season Crafts
Season crafts are always a winner. We have a nice tutorial for Christmas stockings and one for paper-stitched Christmas cards. I found a free tutorial for gorgeous holiday gift tags, and also check out the über-cute felt sewing Christmas ornament.
If you like beautiful things, gift wrapping is as important as the gift itself. A beautiful tag will surely uplift your special Christmas gif!
Oh my… this is sooo cute! I want this for my Christmas tree!
The pattern for this one isn’t free. You can buy it on Etsy. My guess is that you creative people can make this without a pattern, no?
If I would have had this thick felt lying around, I would have started right away.. Shopping list alert: buy thick felt.
Carole wrote this very clear tutorial on how to make a Christmas stocking with some leftover holiday themed fabric. Patchwork the pieces together and sew this Holiday classic in no time!
3. Zero Waste Crafts
The whole 'reduce waste' movement has made a lot of people creative with fabrics, as you can wash and reuse fabric crafts multiple times. People are making reusable tea bags, reusable make-up removers, soap bar holders, and foldable grocery bags, all great little crafts that are using up those little fabric scraps.
Maybe you want to add a little DIY touch to your store bought gifts with one of these projects?
Buy a lovely nice smelling soap bar from you favorite store, local artisan, or you can even make some yourself and add a Fabric Soap Holder to hang the soap bar in the shower. You can use the holder as a washcloth and chuck it in the laundry afterwards.
I didn’t use washcloth fabric, as it works perfectly with cotton and knits as well!
I made these 2 versions:
Purchase a gift voucher from a great perfumery and add these diy and Reusable Make-Up Removers. I used my edge joining foot from the Ultimate presser foot set to edge stitch neatly along those edges. If I made them again I would cut my squares 4 by 4 inch. I like my make-up removers a little bigger.
These are my me-made reusable make-up removers:
Find some original organic tea and add a little stash of homemade Reusable Tea Bags. Use bio cotton or linen for these bags. You don’t want any chemicals ending up in your tea, right?
I’ve gifted this bag to two friends and I’ve noticed they always have the bag with them in their purse. It’s really great to see that they are really getting a lot of use out of it and I'm using this bag a lot myself as well!
And, last but not least: Making Reusable Bread Bags is also a great way to reduce single use plastics and everybody needs them. You can make them as cute as you like. Buy some beautiful cotton, and maybe add some lovely decorative stitching or embroidery… I made mine out of a rather stiff cotton from Benartex. I like that it’s stiff because the bread slides in more easily.
I hope this got you started and that you found something that would be perfect for one of your loved ones! When you scroll through our sewing blog, you can find plenty more free tutorials for little pouches, napkins, wallets, and much more.
An
MadamSew’s inhouse sewing blogger
an@madamsew.com
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Instagram: @an_madamsew & @madamsew and use #madamsew if you want to share what you are making
