The Orchid Raccoon

I should call this bag, "The bag that wasn't meant to be", lol.  Let's start at the beginning, I wanted to make this bag for the Pantone Challenge, last March , I had just gotten my charm square Orchid fabrics in a swap and knew that I wanted to do something with them, so I was thinking a 2.5" patchwork exterior with some Tula Pink's Acacia Raccoon print, but the Etsy shop that I ordered the fabric from, forgot to put that print in the order.  The owner of the shop was so nice that she resent that 1 yard of fabric, plus she included a Quiltsmart Interfacing Panel, now she is closing shop, but she still has a few of these panels left.  They are grided with 2.5" squares on them already, perfect for patchwork projects.  Then get this, the package got lost in the mail, and she was so nice and so sweet, she RESENT IT, it finally arrived but to late for the Pantone Challenge, so entered another bag and put this one on the side to do later, well later is today!

This is the Wonderland bag, the 4th bag in the "Big City Bags" book by Sara Lawson.

I made it a little bit blurry, so you could see the face, can you see it?

I was inspired by several things to do the front panel with 2.5" X blocks, the first came from this months Le Challenge calls for all things X, if you haven't heard of Le Challenge, you should check it out, it's really fun and very relaxing, the due date for your handmade makes is on the 15th of each month, and every month is a different Challenge.  Next came this fun piece, if you haven't seen it, pop over and take a look, you won't regret it, plus all of my links take you to new windows, so you can just click away with out worrying about loosing your place on my awesome blog.

Can you see it now?

 Even Alyssa of Pile of Fabric wrote about it in her tutorial about the block Cross Stitch Block Tutorial/Slice and Stitch method.

Fabrics:
Exterior: Tula Pink Acacia - Racoon Canyon

The back and the bottom

Piping (piping got lost in another package and that is also why I was calling this "The bag that wasn't meant to be", but that package just ended up being very late 5 weeks late and it showed up last Friday) 
Interior fabric: Joel Dewberry - Bungalow - Lavender Chevron 

There are pockets inside, but they are very hidden and way at the bottom.

Front Panel: various Kona Greens,  various green Art Gallery Fabrics and various purples 

Emmaline Bags, Handcrafted Metal Zipper Pull, Love these!

Pattern:
The Pattern is pretty easy, I made only 2 changes, I omitted the handles (didn't want them to interfere in the pretty front panel) and added a strap instead and a hidden handle on the side panel.

Flat Handle on the side panel

I also put the bag together differently and sewed the interior to the zipper by machine instead of hand sewing, I am not very good at the hand sewing thing.
This bag is cute, but the zipper portion is so small and the interior is so big, in fact it is perfect to put one of those miniature toy dogs inside of,

oh look, there's one now!

You need a flashlight to see anything inside, so I added this cute little felt Orchid Raccoon and she hides a key-chain flashlight in the back.  

This little cutie idea came from my friend Mary of Mary Moon Designs, she makes the cutest foxes and other felt stuffies, Thanks Mary for being such an awesome swap partner.

Linking to Purse Palooza
and Le Challenge