Weekender Part Deux is Fini!

Oh yeah, baby!  You read that correctly!!

Ashley's Weekender is all done :)   It is going to be her present for Christmas.   With my husband unemployed, we are trying for a homemade Christmas :D

Can you see the "A" for Ashley?

The Sleeping Beauty fabric is especially for my sweet Ash.  Ash isn't one of those teenagers who sleeps in all day, but she does go to bed with the chickens when ever she can get away with it ;D

If you will notice the Eiffel Tower and other cool French looking ladies....they came from my mom's Weekender bag she made last week.  I am really liking adding a few personal touches like this to my bags.

Here are the shots of the interior.

Say, Ahhhhh!

This is the long divided  interior pocket.

Actually, the interior is not hand sewn in yet :(  I have to wait until after the election to recycle a campaign sign for the bottom.  That plastic corrugated cardboard they use works AWESOME for bag bottoms.  ....and it's free!!!

My friend, Annette the Magnificent, is going to embroider a tag with Ashley's name on it for me.  I may have her embroider it directly into the lining of the bag.  Ash will be taking this bag to college with her.  I'd be SO sad if it went missing!!! :(

This bag took me considerably less time to make than the first one.  The first bag took almost 26 hours to make.  This bag took about 15 hours, with still some hand stitching time still to be added in.

NOTE:  Trimming the batting to a generous 1/2 inch smaller made a HUGE difference in putting the bag together!  Also, when I sewed the front and back panels to the zipper/bottom/ring thing, I pinned and sewed with the zipper/bottom/ring thing facing up/on top.  I felt like the bag was much more manageable to sew around.  I also used my piping foot for this step.  My piping came out beautifully.  I only had to resew about a 1.5" section where some fabric got twisted and a raw edge poked it's way out :\

Weekender Prime is blogged HERE.