Girlie tote bags

A coworker of mine had asked if I could make her 7 year old granddaughter a set of tote bags, one a beach sized towel type bag and one a smaller purse sized bag that she could carry around.  Of course I said yes, and coworkers request was that it had her name on it and said granddaughter liked girlie colors.  Woohoo for free reign!  My mind went to work, and this was what I came up with...

The bigger sized bag measures about 16 inches wide and about 14 or so inches high and is about 6 inches in depth.  I had been thinking about trying some hexagons for some time now, and since I really despise hand sewing, I found this tutorial which is a video tutorial from Ladyharvitine that shows how to machine piece hexagons, and I thought I'd give it a shot.  I figured this would be a nice small project to just get my feet wet.

I must say, there is definitly a learning curve to this, but once I got the spacing down (you have to leave a precise 1/4 inch unsewn on each end to join them together) they went together quite easily.  Its definitly not perfect, but I really like the effect here.  I then machine embroidered her name on the hexagons, and pieced the hexagon portion with some white canvas, and then applied some heavy fusible interfacing to give it some weight. 

The back of the bag is white canvas and I lined the tote with a pretty girlie pink cotton solid.

As for the smaller tote, I kind of followed this tutorial from Rachel at p.s. i quilt however adjusted the dimensions to fit my need. 

I used 2 1/2 inch strips and used 6 on each side and made them about 10 1/2 inches high.  After I pieced them together and then cut a 12 1/2 x 4 1/2 inch piece of white canvas for the bottom, the finished dimensions measured about 8 inches wide by 10 inches high and the depth is about 4 inches.  It acutually makes a nice lunch sized tote or a small bag/purse for a little girl.  I just used some white 1 inch cotton webbing for the handles on both bags (i.e. the lazy way :) ) instead of cutting and making fabric handles. 

Here's a pic of the back..

I like this smaller bag, I'm already thinking of adding strips and making them taller to make a tote bag for myself!  The cotton batting just gives it a really nice weight and feel to it. 

I have one more ordered bag to make for another coworker, her daughter wants a bag with her initials on it to be her school bag this year, and she has requested zebra print fabric and pink!  So fun...check back soon!