Instructions

• Take an old credit card or similar and cut 2 long strips ½" wide (or use a plastic bottle).
• Cut a piece of fabric 10"x4". Fold in and press seam allowance of 3/8" down long sides.
• On short ends make a double hem by pressing down ½" and the same again. Hem by hand or stitch by machine. Slip a plastic strip into each hem.
• Fold the fabric into a bag shape with raw edges on the inside. Firmly stitch the ends together at the top (if the strips are too long, snip a bit off), and carry on down the sides hand-sewing with tiny stitches, or sew by machine.
• You could add a ribbon loop and hang it on the Christmas tree.

To open the bag have your thumb against one edge at the top and index finger against the other. Push finger and thumb together and the bag will pop open. Release and it snaps shut.

Decorate one side with a tatted motif. This can be stuck down or stitched down before you sew the sides together. Any motif can be used, but the ones shown here are a snowflake (for pattern see 2 Quick Snowflakes in this section) and a square motif which I designed to teach my class about Karey Solomon's button tatting:

Button-Tatted Square

To tat with buttons, you join picots into the holes in the buttons, making sure the joins are snug but not too snug, so that the work lies flat.

Materials: No 40 cotton and old mother o' pearl buttons with 4 holes or shirt buttons

1st Motif

*R: 5+5 (join into hole in button) RW
Ch: 5-5-5-5 RW
Rep from * all round. Cut and tie threads through first ring.

2nd Motif

R: 5+5 (join into hole in button) RW
Ch: 5-5-5+5 (join corresponding picot in first motif) RW
R: 5+5 RW
Ch: 5+5-5-5 (join corresponding picot in first motif) RW

Note: Button probably has a right and a wrong side, so make sure the wrong side is facing when joining chains, and the right side facing when working rings, or the other way round, just be consistent.

Work the rest of the motif as 1st Motif. Work 3rd and 4th Motifs in same way.