My Great Getaway Bag - Part 1

In one of my earlier posts, I promised to guide you through my "making of" Lisa Lam's Great getaway bag.
Here it is.
The bag had a rough time during our holiday and had to carry a lot of weight, but she survived without damage. Everything held, no loose stitches. 
It is a large project , with many fabric pieces.
First, I cut all the exterior, lining and interfacing pieces. I numbered them(on the wrong side of the fabric) and pinned fabric and interfacing together till they were ready to be used.

I started with the bag lining . As this is in fact a copy of the exterior bag, I wanted to be sure this went well, before tackling the outer bag. Mistakes would be less visible on the inside.
Inserting the flush zip pocket is not difficult if you follow the steps on p. 67-69 of the book.
Here is my result:

If you read step 22 on p. 119, Lisa uses only one lining piece for the lining pocket. I cut 2 pieces, put them RS together and stitched the top edge with 1cm seam allowance. Then, I turned them over so that now the WS were facing and topstitched along the top edge. Two layers make the pocket stronger.
Here I am stitching the pocket to the main body piece along a central divider line. I always start at the bottom, pivot at the top edge of the pocket and go down again along the same line, for a stronger hold.

A closer look:

 

I assembled the lining bag following steps 17-18 .

 A close-up - from the inside - of the hole along the top of the lining.

Then, I continued, following steps 19,25-26, but I started with bringing the long edges together, instead of the short ones.  This way, I found it easier to align the lining bag and base evenly.

With the bag lining completely assembled, I was ready to move on to the exterior.

But first, I still had to make all the small bits and pieces .

More about that in my next post.

Kristien