Tulip Bag

Have been working on something for myself; NOT a Christmas gift, or something for my little soon-to-be-arriving grandtwins! ♥♥   Or anyone else's pending babies... :)

I am working on a tote bag made with fancy pieced tulip blocks. The blocks are quite time consuming although not really difficult. I recently joined the Heartland Quilter's Guild and this is one of the things that members are supposed to have (not sure exactly what the reason is...) as well as a pink or is it red name tag...

So (or should I say "sew" ! :) I have been working on the 8 tulip blocks, putting the finishing touches on them. After that I cut out the rest of the squares from the green and purple Climbing Lantern Pod fabric.The sashing to sew in between them is a light mauve batik fabric, 1/1/4 inches wide....

Two tulip blocks are sewn together with sashing in between.

An 8 inch lantern pod block is sewn below the tulip blocks and a triangle block is sewn above them.  

The 1 1/4 " sashing is also sewn along the right side of the blocks. 

 Four groups of blocks are made like this which will make up the bag once sewn together.

Then I quilted each group of blocks onto batting.
I quilted "in the ditch" around the tulip flowers and the leaves as well as on one side of the sashing.
On the Lantern pattern blocks I lowered the feed dogs and did a free motion meander pattern.

 

Next the 4 groups of blocks are placed in this windmill pattern and sewn together. The 4 lantern Pod blocks in the middle of the windmill make up the bottom of the tote bag. The 'arms' of the windmill are sewn together to make the sides of the bag.

This is the body of the bag so far....

Now I have to make the handles and the inner lining.
I have 2 different directions for putting the lining in the bag; one involves "sandwiching" the bag and the lining (right sides together), then sewing them along with the handles. The other involves putting edging on the top of the bag, but it doesn't explain how or when to put on the handles, so I'm not sure which I will do yet....