The Amy Butler Weekender Bag...day one

So, I've been planning to make my mother a AB weekender bag for Mother's Day for months. I want it to be really special. She's a nurse and works in a neighboring city and when she works she goes and stays her three shifts and then returns home so she could really use a cute bag. I've agonized over what fabric to pick, I finally thought I had settled on some Alexander Henry for the exterior, but I couldn't find anything that looked good as a coordinate with it and I didn't want to use cream for the handles and the piping since it would show dirt so easily. So I've dug in my stash and found this really nice chocolate microsuede. I think that will work. I'll use the AH as the lining and trim and the microsuede as the exterior fabric.
So...I'm photographing the process. I don't know if it would be considered a sew along or a tutorial (I'm not really sure what the difference is), but I thought it might be helpful to someone to see how I made my bag. First off...I'm not using my usual machine which is a Brother PC6000, which I just adore. However after reading a bunch of reviews about this pattern on Patternreview I've opted to use one of my vintage machines and the lucky winner was my Necchi Bu Nova. She's black and beautiful. I haven't used her in over a year so I dusted her off and gave her a drink last night and she's ready to go.




Alright, first things first. Here's a bit of a criticism. When I pay $12 for a pattern I expect all of the pieces to be there. It might not seem like a big deal to anyone else, but she has you measure and cut out the bottom pieces and the straps. Could she not have made the pattern pieces one more page and included these pieces? Ugh! So...off I go to create my own since I do plan to make this bag for myself and perhaps if all goes well 2 for my sisters for Christmas and I don't want to spend nearly as much time as the first. So there's a hint. Create pattern pieces of these pieces for the bag for future use. Jeez Amy!



So here are my missing pattern pieces. I traced them on freezer paper using a yardstick and a sharpie, oh and of course my kai self healing mat was pretty helpful too.
Boy...I'm beat. Off to bed. I'll work on it some more tomorrow.