Rainbow Drawstring Bag Advent Calendar

Happy Wednesday! Today I wanted to share my finished rainbow drawstring bag advent calendar!


Back in November, I had the idea to make a second drawstring bag advent calendar, this time one specifically to use for a tea advent! (see my first calendar here: Drawstring Bag Advent Calendar) There are a lot of ready-made tea advent calendars you can buy, but I liked the idea of this one being reusable and also that I could use teas I already have. My intentions were good, but sadly I didn't finish the bags until this month. That's okay though. I decided I can do it anytime I want, or even just wait until next December.


I wanted this calendar to be simpler than my first one. I knew I wanted to use non-holiday fabrics for it and quickly settled on using food/fruit themed fabrics. I have a large collection of these types of prints, so it was fun to dive into my stash and choose 24 different prints. I also decided not to number them. I didn't want to compete with the prints, and I liked that it would give some additional flexibility.


I also decided to make the most streamlined bags I could. I used my Lined Drawstring Bag Pattern and the Expansion Pattern. These are all the tiny size, but without the gussets. I used easy going variation from the expansion pattern and used a single fabric for the outside of each bag. These changes made the bag construction much faster!


Here they are, all together! I love how cheerful and colorful they look. Again, since these are made with non-holiday fabrics I feel like they could be used as a little countdown calendar to many different things! I have a feeling they're going to get a lot of use.


I finished them all off with paracord, since again this is the easiest thing to use for the ties when making this many in my opinion. I went with white, which I carry in my shop.


I love seeing all these different fabrics used. Some I purchased in 2022, and there is one that I've had since 2007!! A real time capsule of my stash. Clearly I've always loved food fabrisc!


My storage/display plan for this calendar is to use a basket or bin to hold them. Now I just need to fill them up with tea! :)
Happy Sewing!