Four Projects Finished

The reversible bucket bag is done and I do like it. I still am upset with the pattern.

The bag is made out of quilting cotton that is a family grouping. The outer bag fabric has a woven fusible medium weight interfacing (Pellon SF 101) fused to it. The inner cotton has a black fusible fleece (Pellon) fused to it. Counting the interfacing and fleece, there is 2.5 meters of fabric in this bag.

The bag comes from the book "The Bag Making Bible" by Lisa Liam. The full size pattern in the back of the book is an asset and it was marked as Chapter 2 which gave the tutorial on the bag.
The bag was probably meant as an easy sew and the instructions seem to assume a person knew what they were doing. If not, they were poorly written. Though the pictures were well taken, they didn't add to the instructions. When making the bias binding, you had to go to the back of the book for instructions. Cutting a 4" wide piece of fabric to put through a bias tape maker of the largest size to make a 1" binding was impossible. I made the binding using the method of folding it in half, pressing, unfolding and bringing the raw edges to the middle and pressing.
When I sewed the bag, my biggest mistake (my problem not the books) was to sew the base in incorrectly. I did it to both the outer and lining bag bodies. I took them out and got them back in neatly again. I did not like how she stated to make pleats if the base didn't fit. My thought - make the base to fit the bag when you drafted it.  

I put the strip of bias on the seam allowance when I put the base in wrong. When I fixed the base, I left the trim on and really like it.
The button loop wasn't life threatening; probably because the instructions made sense. I got the bias trim on the back and front doing it my way. Sew, turn, pin, hand stitch down and then top stitch. The handles were another story. I could not find the instructions for them. As there were two pieces, I put them on separately and it was wrong. I looked and thought and said a few unkind words before I sewed those two pieces together with a 3/8" seam. Those seam allowances matched up at the side seams. I sewed the binding to the top of the purse, turned them, hand sewed them down and then top stitched all the way around. Once at the bottom of the binding and once at the top.
The bag is roomy and holds everything with space left over. It is fun and practical at the same time.
If I decide to make this bag again, I will have to remember all the pitfalls of this pattern. I would not recommend it to a beginner unless it was done in a class setting one step at a time.
On a more positive note, I cut out and made three 40" square scarves (called Cowboy Rags) for Daughter. The cutting out was the hardest part. Once I got the serger set up and sewing a nice rolled hem, I zinged through those scarves.

The top two fabrics are a satiny polyester and weren't too hard to cut out. The flower fabric was a lighter weight, more slippery and harder to cut out in a square. I did succeed. They are ready to put into the Christmas gift box. That was a total of 3 meters used up in the course of 2 hours. I have enough of the flower fabric left to make an infinity scarf. I will need a piece of black crepe and some lace to make it for me.
Today was sweet success.