Another WIP-busting finish :: hexie dilly bag {blogtoberfest day 21}

I fell off ye olde Blogtoberfest bandwagon, didn’t I? Last weekend, I was unwell. On the Friday, I went from tired with a yucky throat, to exhausted and swallowing golf balls within a couple of hours. I hit publish on the post sharing the boys birthday cakes, collected the children from their various activities, and took myself off to bed. The cakes I wrote about having to make for Butterfly remained in the boxes that I’d bought when I did a quick trip to the supermarket for a hot chook & some buns for dinner. I left Mr Barefoot in charge of baking two box cakes and feeding the children, and proceeded to sleep the better part of the weekend away. Monday, as always, rolled around far too quickly, and with it, life and work and responsibilities. My craft time was restricted to Productive Crafting, ie, costumes for the school dress-up day on Friday, and time to photograph and share was non-existent.

This coming weekend, however, is Quilt Camp. I am in the process of packing and cleaning the house and wondering if I have time to make Violet Crumble cheesecake. On Monday afternoon, I sat at my sewing machine and added some ribbon and tape to clear an almost-finished dilly bag off my table.

I first started this bag as part of the hexie bag sewalong last year, almost exactly a year ago actually! The hexie section was completed, and waited patiently in my WIP basket for me to come back to it. After my last big WIP busting session, this was next on my list, and every now and then I’d do a bit more, then hit a road block, then do some more. I stubbornly refused to pack it away though, knowing if it was in the box it would languish for another year, whereas if it was on my desk it would annoy me until it was done.

Truth be told, I didn’t love this pattern. The cutting instructions weren’t complete – there were other pieces to cut that were listed through the sewing instructions, which frustrated me. I like to batch my tasks. Tell me how much fabric to cut and then I can pack away my cutter and scraps and leftover fabric and move on to the sewing. I also don’t think paper piecing was the best option for these hexies, as it seemed to add a bit too much ease into the outer, and while the inside and outside looked to be the same width, the outer didn’t fit the base circle nearly as neatly as the inside, though I’m putting that down to operator error.

I did make a couple of customisations to my bag. First was the addition of pleats to a couple of the hexies to add some interest:

The other thing I did was change the lining a bit – for one, I did a pieced lining, to make the most of my Vintage Modern scraps. I also changed the size of the pockets, again, to work with what I had, and I really don’t think I’ll be using those that much. The biggest change was not trimming the lining & batting once the inner and outer were assembled together. The pattern called for the excess lining/batting (around 2-odd inches) to be trimmed – another thing I wasn’t a big fan of in this pattern – but I chose to leave it there, to save both time and wastage. I know that the top won’t gather quite as neatly, but I can live with that. It’s a project bag, a non-ruffled top won’t worry me. Then top finish it off I used a single twill tape drawstring, for no other reason than that was what I had on hand. Maybe one day I’ll fix it up, for now, it’s done enough to use.

And use it I am! What better way to break it in than to pack it full with my Vintage Modern BOM amd scraps ready for quilt camp this weekend? I have 8 blocks to finish, and my aim for the weekend is to get the top together, though I am also being optimistically prepared and packing some batting too, just in case. The scraps are packed to give me more options in putting the top together, because I’m thinking of not doing the flying geese sashing that the pattern calls for, and instead setting the blocks on point, and laying it out with a low volume background. I may need a few extra blocks to do it that way, which I plan to pull from scraps.

Nothing like a finish to get the creative mojo running! Let’s hope it keeps flowing all weekend and I can get this quilt DONE. After 3 years, I want it off my list and out of my craft room. Next on the to-do list – camp gifts! Yes, there is only one and a half days until I leave for camp, what’s your point?

{and a little PSA – I’m joining the other lovely ladies from And Sew We Craft for 30 Days of Christmas in November. If you are dreaming of a handmade Christmas, pop over and sign up for a daily dose of Christmas inspiration in your inbox}