Doing the Hexie Hop

Today I am happy to be participating in the Be a Hexie Queen blog hop,  one of the many blog hops organized by Madam Samm at Sew We Quilt.  For this hop, our cheerleader was Debby Kratovil of Debby Kratovil Quilts.  Thank you, ladies, for all you do to coordinate these hops.

The first part of my project was a Hexagon Tote Bag.

I started with a charm pack of Coquette by Moda, a couple of coordinating fat quarters,   a package of one inch paper pieces and no particular plan in mind.

A little bit of enjoyable sewing time in the evenings eventually resulted in this pretty piece of patchwork:

I decided to turn it into a totebag, and I found a wonderful online tutorial for a lunchbag from Ayumi at Pink Penquin . What I love about Ayumi's tote is that the bag has an inner liner with a drawstring that gives a little extra room, and a little extra security to the items inside.

I added a little bling with some beads to the drawstrings just for fun:

When picking coordinating fabrics for the totebag, I came across a cute little girlie print that was the perfect size for fussy cutting and making hexagons.  Aren't these just the cutest?

I wanted to use these little charmers in my project, but did not want to look like I borrowed the bag from a young girl, so I used them to make a matching change purse instead:

The pattern for the change purse was another tutorial I found online from Anna Graham of Noodlehead designs.  It's great that the zipper extends beyond the width of the purse so that the purse can really open wide.

I wanted to share a little bit about how I went from hexie patchwork to finished tote.  There are a lot of wonderful online tutorials about how to do English paper piecing, but most end with creating the patchwork. I was afraid the whipstitched seams might come apart if I tried to cut it, but...

I needed two pieces for the front and back of the tote, so, with great trepidation, I cut it in half!

I took one half, laid it on a piece of batting, and machine quilted it:

I cut sashing strips, and sewed them on two sides, right through the batting.

Then I cut off the excess hexagon halves, and pressed the sashing strips open.

You can see in the photo above, that not much was wasted of the hand pieced hexagons.  I did the same thing to add sashing on the top and the bottom, and then I treated it just like any other piece of fabric.  This piece went on the front of the tote, and I did the same to the other piece for the back.

I'm so glad I joined the Hexie Queen blog hop.  It gave me the motivation to get the project finished and now I have a great little bag for lunchtime or anytime.

Please be sure to visit the other bloggers who are sharing their hexie projects today:

Sew Peace to Peace

sarah did it!

Jane’s Quilting 

Life in the Scrapatch

Lixie Makes It 

Livinbluequilter  

Creative Notions 

Modern Handcraft 

Feathered Nest Studio 

Moneik Quilts