Stitch or Treat?! Make your own Stitch People Halloween Treat Bag

Happy Halloween!!! This is a favorite time of year at Stitch People! No, not just for the treats (although they certainly help) but because we get to unleash even more Stitch People fun into the world! Stitch People are so adaptable that they can be customized into all kinds of ghoulish ghouls and creepy creeps! Which means they can join in on your Halloween play time! One of the best ways we use Stitch People at Halloween is customizing a Trick or Treat bag for the kids to collect all the candy they scare up. It’s pretty easy and only takes a couple of supplies, most of which you’ll already have from your Stitch People stash! Let’s take a look at how you can make your own terrifying treat bag!

First of all you’ll need a burlap tote bag. We found these small ones on Amazon but you can use any kind you like depending on how much candy you want to bring home. We like to use burlap because it has a similar weave to Aida fabric which helps when making our cross-stitches, but also because it has a kind of creepy, scarecrow feel to it.

Next you’ll need to design your monster! We chose Frankenstein’s Monster from our free Halloween patterns but you can let your imagination run wild. Why not try customizing your monster based on the costumes the kids will be wearing this year. You’ll need to design your monster a little bigger so that they don’t get lost on the treat bag. Use the tips from our blog post on increasing the size of your Stitch People. Our treat bags are small so we just used the head of our monster. If your treat bags are larger, you might want to stitch the whole body.

Mark the center of your pattern and then find the center of your treat bag. The center of your treat bag will also need to be the center of your pattern so that your monster is stitched in the middle of your treat bag.

Stitching your monster is the same process as a normal Stitch People piece though the bag can make things a little fiddly. It helps (but is not necessary) to turn your pattern and the treat bag upside down while you stitch so you’re stitching from the top of your pattern, downwards. This means you stitch through the opening of your bag and you don’t need to keep swiveling it around every time you want to make a stitch.. Your treat bag probably has a plastic lining so you’ll need a sharp needle to be able to pierce through it. We used a size 5 Chenille Needle which has a point but a large eye to hold all 6 strands of our thread.

It took us about 2 hours from beginning to end to design and stitch our monster. If your pattern is larger, give yourself longer. We added simple block text to the bottom of our bag. If you add text, there is no need to be precise. If there’s one time of year where you’re allowed to be wobbly and messy, it’s Halloween!

For more scary patterns to use for your treat bags, check out our Halloween Pattern set. Have a safe, fun but above all spooooooookyyy Halloween!!!