the weekender part I

I know I've mentioned before that I have decided to tackle Amy Butler's weekender bag. And now that I am almost done the exterior, I thought it was time it got it's own post. I had been admiring the pattern for the past couple of years and finally decided it was time to do it. I started with this lovely stack of fabric

and have gotten to this point so far

I am quilting the pieces to a piece of cotton batting and a piece of outdoor fabric (I found it a bit stiffer than the duck cloth and it was on clearance at Joann's at the end of the season) using a fairly dense straight line quilting. My biggest mistake so far is that I forgot to take into account that the handles will be covering some of the exterior pieces so a bunch of lovely patchwork will be hidden. Oh well. I have two more pieces to go, the long top pieces, and then I am going to zig-zag the edges of them all so that they don't fray and annoy me while I am working.

I am still waiting on my cording/handle fabric and my lining fabric. In fact, due to my order being missed, they no longer have the cording/handle fabric and I will have to reorder it again elsewhere, so I am pretty bummed about that. I will hopefully finish up those last two pieces today or tomorrow and then I guess we'll see when I have what I need to continue. I think it is going to be a fantastic bag though once it is done. If I can get those last pieces done, the house block for sew south is next followed by some pony club blocks while I wait to be able to finish this. Here's looking forward to a nice productive week!