Today is day three of Selfish Sewing Week and I am so excited to FINALLY be posting my Amy Butler Weekender Bag. I finished on Sunday night, after having started it, oh, 4 months ago! This bag can be used just as the title says, as a weekend getaway or overnight bag. But it also can fit a standard size Brother sewing machine and I used it last night to carry my machine over to my latest sewing class!
I started this bag back in May but was taking my precious time and being meticulous. Because of that, I did not get to finish during the 4 weeks of the class. My local fabric store Five Eighth Seams offers tons of different project classes and I was excited to finally get the chance to do something that wasn’t skirt, dress, pants, or shirt but because it was my first bag I wanted to really take my time. I have a done a few zipper pouches but never anything like this. The pattern is by Amy Butler and is pretty labor intensive. Not only do you need your home dec fabric and standard interfacing but also a sharp point jeans needle, binder clips (since pinning just wont do the trick), thick heavy Peltex stabilizer, heavy duty template plastic, a heavyweight zipper, and 5 yards of cotton cording (or you can make your own to match/coordinate, like I did). If you want to be a rebel like me, you can opt out of the home dec fabric and use a quiliting cotton of your choice, just be mindful that you will need to add an extra layer (or two) of interfacing. I decided, since I love matching prints, to use 3-4 different fabrics all throughout the bag. I went with an all Leah Duncan for Art Gallery Fabrics design, incorporating fabrics from her Meadow collection and her Tule collection. This was actually purely accidental. I knew I wanted the Summer Grove by Day to by my main picket piece and as I walked around the fabric store picking other prints to match, I ended up with the majority all Leah Duncan designs!
My topstitching is not the best I have ever done but come on, I was sewing though 5 layers at this point. It was hard to keep a steady line! But in real life they don’t show up as much as they do in these photos.
Enjoy your week and whether you sew or now, do something selfish for yourself today ! And if anyone asks, tell them I said it was ok. xxxoo Priscilla
