Sooo excited today because I have finally got the outside of my Amy Butler Weekender bag finished! It looks like a bag!!
( check out the first instalment of my Amy Butler Weekender bag here )
I got the main side panels done a few weeks ago and I decided to quilt them AND my side pockets too (they did shrink a little bit, but not too much. Next time (hah!) I would quilt then cut them down to the correct size.
I loved all the text in there and those bears!
and so glad those sloths fitted in nicely…. and my typewriter… and my combi!
I was a bit worried about the piping, I haven’t done bias piping before.. but it was pretty easy. Cutting the bias out required me to clear my entire table…. that wasn’t much fun (I do like to make a mess when I sew!), but making the bias piping was pretty easy.
The next step was to make up the top, sides and put in the zip. I wanted to have two zipper pulls so that it opened at the top, rather than have the end of the zip down in the little side pocket (@tarasews said this is quite a pain!) so I fiddled around adding an extra pull to my huge zip… some swear words later it was on!
Then I added the side pockets onto the zipper section. I posted this on instagram and then had it sitting on the floor next to my sewing desk for a few weeks…… only today did I notice that I had sewed my pockets on the wrong way!! The apples are the inside lining!! OOPS. Quick unpicking required….
Then I finally got to sew the sides and zipper section and bottom on. It was quite a bag wrangle. My wrist is pretty sore from pushing and holding and hanging it all together, but my machine handled it like a dream! No broken needles, no complaints at all 🙂
I still need to do the lining, but I have a few other deadlines to meet soon, so this will have a little break just sitting in my sewing room where I can admire it 🙂
Update: 10th September – I finished the lining! Woohoo! And my bag took me on a trip to Adelaide beautifully…. I am in love with this!
#FAL2016 as part of my Quarter 3 2016 Quilty List
Your bag looks great! The piping is beautiful, and I love all your fussy cut fabrics on the pockets. So glad you took a break and discovered that the pockets needed to be flipped before you proceeded any further! This pattern makes a wonderful bag, and I admire the folks who actually make it!
Thanks Marla! I would have been devastated if I hadn’t noticed about the pockets until later!
Well done, it looks fantastic! I made one a couple of years ago, i started it the morning before i had to go on a business trip abroad… i got it finished but would never do that again!
Wendy you did WHAT?!? Wow…. that is impressive… it has taken me WEEKS and even if I had done all that time back to back it would still have been DAYS… I am in awe 🙂 🙂
So pretty! Thank you for participating in the FAL, on behalf of the 2016 global FAL hosts