Again, it took a rainy day to start on the Weekender Bag – yesterday, and I suppose the arrival of most of my supplies last week. I’m making it as a birthday gift for my cousin Jessica (I don’t think she reads my blog – *crosses fingers*) and it has to be done by Friday!

This pattern, as stated in earlier posts, intimidated the crap out of me. All the reviews I’ve seen list it high on the difficulty scale; one experienced seamstress gave it a 9/10. And I’ve only sewn ONE thing, the nappy bag.

Two hours of cutting out the patterns and prepping and I was ready to start. One of the first steps is to work on the outer pockets, lining them with stiff interfacing, and fusing together with lightweight interfacing. Easy. Creating and attaching the handles to them was also fairly easy.

I did have a heck of a time making the piping! Yes, this bag has freaking piping, 15 feet of it to be exact. Instead of sewing the fabric around the cotton cording, I cheated. I picked up 2 rolls of 1 1/2″ matching ribbon, the cording, and some 1/4″ Stitch Witchery iron-in bonding tape (should have gotten 1/2″). While I’m 100% certain this way was much easier for me as a beginner, it left me with a few burns and was truly a pain in the butt. It took me about 1.5 – 2 hours to do the cording.

At this point, I think I am about 65% done. I am still waiting for my zipper foot and a decent seam ripper to arrive tomorrow, then I can finish… I stupidly seamed one of the small pockets upside down, and mismeasured the position of one of the handles to the bag – both of course my fault. So that should be about an hour of seam ripping (job for the boyfriend). Once those are done, I basically just have to sew in the zipper, and assemble the pieces of the bag, hooray!

Overall, I have to say, being roughly halfway done, this pattern is about 100 times easier than I expected. I have yet to get stuck, and after taking a glance at the future steps, I don’t think I will. I love Amy Butler. I just ordered the fabric to make my own after this one. Jessica and I are going to Isla Mujeres Mexico for a few days in November and these will be perfect!

I don’t have any in-process pics yet other than the heavy-weight fabric used for the exterior. But will post some soon – perhaps after I give the gift?