this last week i was able to play with some of lotta’s fabric called bella. (i added a couple of mine into there as well as some solid fabrics to give it a fun mix)

hexagons are really cool, i love hexagons. i’ve shown my love of them with a few pics throughout the years like here. and here.

i have been working on a few hexagon ideas, and am still working on them throughout this summer, but here’s a fun little project (and fast!) involving appliqueing hexagons onto a canvas bag.

my way of appliqueing is super fast and makes it so it looks like you have totally slaved away doing needle turn when in fact you are sewing your hexagons onto pellon interfacing and creating the illusion of english paper or needle turn applique.

are you ready for it?

okay.

what you’ll need:

 -1canvas bag found at walmart in the craft section. (i got mine in a pack of three)

– a variety of 5″ squares (i used 9 squares, but take in mind if you make smaller hexes, you can get more from one block, if you make larger hexes you will need larger pieces of fabric)

– a Hexagon Ruler to create a 4.5″ hexagon template

–Quilter’s Plastic Template 12×12″ 3/Pkg

-pellon 804 fusible light weight interfacing (it’s dryer sheet weight) i found mine at hancocks, and i bought the bolt 🙂

-washable pen, iron

-thread in the color of your blocks for applique part of the project (close to the color of your blocks, it doesn’t have to be exact match)

okay after you have created your hexagon template,  we are going to use our template and draw our hexagons on each of our 5″ blocks.  i drew mine on the right side of the fabric.

next i cut out 5″ x 5″ blocks of the fusible webbing.

1. and placed it on top of my drawn side of the fabric

2. then i sewed on my drawn hexagon line.

3. and then i cut out my hexagons leaving around 1/8″ to 1/4″ seam allowance.

do this for all your hexagons.

-next i wanted to make a slit in my webbing in the middle, so i gently pulled the webbing away from the fabric, did a slit down the middle around 1″ to 1 1/2″ slit.

-gently pull through the fabric through your slit in the webbing.

-once you have turned it inside out, gently push out the corners making sure you don’t break the webbing.

do this for all your hexagons.

now the fun part!

play around with your hexagons, make whatever design you want. really there is no limit, you don’t need to worry about them all touching because you will be ironing them on and then appliqueing them…so do what you want!

i kind of wanted the tetris feel sooo i decided to have a few of them grouped together one almost locking in place and one falling down…

once i figured out where i wanted them, i ironed them down.

see how cool this is…

now you just have to get your matching thread and seal the deal by placing a few good applique stitches around each of the hexagons.

i show you how to applique here in this hand bag i showed you a little while ago. (scroll down to the applique section) 🙂

now you are pretty much ready to hit the beach, pool, park, or whatever scene with this totally cool tote.

i have to say i kind of like it. like a lot.

i have more fun summer ideas. just kids in the way of making them happen…and i’m really okay with that. 😉 but i’ll try.

we’ll talk soon. 🙂