Weekender Travel Bag Part 1

This weekend my husband and I went to Sioux Falls,SD for a small get away. It was such a nice treat to spend the weekend together. On Friday we went to the Canaries baseball game and then on Saturday we went to the zoo. It looked like there would be rain later in the day so we went early only to get caught in the thunderstorm. I had so much fun feeding all of the sheep and goats in the barn that I really didn't mind the rain. My favorite animals are the penguins and my husband loves the monkeys and thankfully all of them were inside on Saturday. The rain was a great excuse to stay and watch our favorite animals for long periods of time.

I've been thinking about making Amy Butler's Weekender Bag for a while now, but have always resisted since I don't go away for that many weekend trips. As I was thinking about packing for this trip I realized that I don't have a small suitcase for short trips. After listening to me go back and forth several times my husband finally told me to just order the fabric. (Gotta love it when the husband tells you to order fabric.) I knew that I wouldn't be able to finish this bag before my Sioux Falls trip, but I was still excited when my fabric arrived on Friday. 

I'm using Autumn Woods by Katie and Birdie Paper Co and will be making the quilted version of this bag. (The instructions don't include this method, but there's lots of tutorials online for how to do this.) My plan is to use the squirrel and tree fabric for the pockets, the words will be the panels behind the pockets, the flower fabric will make the sides and the acorn fabric will be used for my piping and lining. I'm not sure if I'm going to use the acorn fabric or one of my blue fabrics for straps, but that decision is still a few steps away.