Weekender Bag for Mom

Ever since my mom saw my Amy Butler weekender bag, she's wanted one as well.  So for Christmas (which for this bag came in early February) I made her one.  I followed most of the same tips that I did the last time, you can see them summarized here.  The only thing I didn't do was make a shoulder strap- surprisingly I don't use mine all that much (the weight of the bag distributes weirdly on a single shoulder strap).  On this one I just lengthened the handles so they're long enough to carry the bag over the shoulder.  I think it turned out even better than mine, and I think my mom likes it!  

One of the coolest thing about this version is that I turned the zippers around.  I had to get a parka zipper which has the zips in a tail-to-tail orientation, rather than a suitcase zipper which has the zips in a head to head orientation.  I saw some things on line that indicated you could turn them around (provided it was s non-separating zipper), but I couldn't really find any instructions.  I thought I'd be brave, so I just cut both ends off the zipper, pulled the zips off, and put them back on the other way around.   I have no idea whether that's the right way, but it totally worked, and now the zipper opens from the middle like a real suitcase!

Possibly the most exciting thing about this project is that I didn't sew over any fingers during its construction (yay)!