Weekender Travel Bag Part 2

This weekend I've been working on my Weekender Travel Bag. My goal was to finish the main panels this weekend. The bag is a challenge, but Amy Butler writes an amazing pattern. (I've been intimidated by her patterns since the bags always look complicated, but having read this one I won't be intimidated by that again.) 

I was really surprised how easy the piping was. I found several tutorials on cutting bias strips from a fat quarter that provided the perfect amount of strips. I also followed the advice of several bloggers who used 1/4" stitch witchery to fuse the piping in place. (Sorry I looked these up on my phone and can't remember who's tutorial I followed so I don't have a links. If you google bias strips from fat quarter and piping with stitch witchery you'll find hundreds of tutorials.) I also read hints of using clips to hold the piping in place. I didn't have wonder clips or binder clips, but I did have clothes pins. I found they worked perfectly since I could position my piping in the little groove of the clothes pin and nothing wiggled. 

I saw lots of people that advised using a piping foot, but my machine uses slant feet so I used the zipper foot that she came with. Once I realized that I could position the foot to be on the side of the needle that the piping wasn't on it worked great. The zipper also went in without any problems. Now I just need to decide if I want to use the white flower fabric or the persimmon acorn fabric for the base. (I'm using the acorn fabric for the lining. I love the little pops of orange, but don't want to over do it.)