Echino Handbag - I love it!

I've been working on this bag for the past few weeks. I bought this Echino fabric a couple of years ago at a craft show from Kelani Fabrics. I bought two meters, intending to make a skirt, but then was too scared to cut into it. I love Echino fabrics designed by Etsuko Furuya, I have a little tote bag that I have been using every day, and I realised that I would get a a lot more use out of a bag than a skirt. Especially since I haven't really sewn any clothes that I have liked enough to wear! So at the craft show this year, I bought the Panel Bag pattern by Nicole Mallalieu Design. The pattern was a little pricey, but absolutely fantastic. It comes with a little booklet that takes you step by step, with lots of pictures, and different options so you can customise the bag. I used an Amy Butler fabric I had in my small fabric stash as the lining, so have two beautiful fabrics that I adore. The bag did take a long time to cut out all the pattern pieces from the paper pattern, then the fabric and interfacing. I chose to interface the whole bag to make it a bit more sturdy. The actual sewing was quite straight forward, with a little bit of hand sewing, and a couple of tricky parts when I was sewing through quite a few layers. I ended up using a denim needle in my machine, which helped a lot. There is also a lot of top-stitching, so I had to make sure that was straight and even. There is a zipper pocket on one side, the instructions were great here, so it was fairly simple to insert. On the other side of the lining I put in the three pockets, so I should have a place for everything! I used the bag this morning for the first time and it is perfect. Nice and big to shove everything in, but light-weight. The reason I haven't been using my handbags recently is beacuse they are all feel quite heavy bythe end of the day, and my back starts to ache, but that didn't happen today. We are going to Japan in 10 days, I canb't wait to take my new bag, and maybe buy some more Echino!