Ever since Amber Makes joined the Sewing Directory I’ve been admiring their beautiful kits and wanting to try one. So, I asked them if I could give their Velvet Weekender Bag kit a try and review it for you all. They sell lots of beautiful sewing kits including bags, pouches, cushions, fabric baskets, sewing cases and Christmas kits. You can view the full range here.
What's in the kit?
The kit comes with a pre-printed fabric panel, on beautiful soft velvet fabric. All the pieces are labelled and ready for you to cut out. There is a piece of lining fabric included too, you trace around the exterior pieces to cut the matching lining pieces. There are also 2 zips included, a double ended zip for the main bag and a smaller zip for an interior pocket.
The only thing you need to add is some snap fasteners or Velcro should you decide to make the shoulder pad. If you prefer your bags to have body I’d suggest adding some bag foam, like Vlieseline Style-vil or some fusible fleece.
Making the bag
The preparation is very easy thanks to the pre-printed panel. I have to say I was impressed with how soft and strokable the velvet fabric is, and the vibrancy of its colours (the photos don’t do it justice). The kit comes with a written instruction booklet, which is very text heavy. There’s a lot of instructions to fit in, the accompanying photos are fairly small, but big enough to see what you need to see.
I do appreciate that they have put the name of the fabric pieces in bold to help them stand out. I started by using the instruction book but found it difficult to follow because it is so text dense and I’m very much a visual learner. So before long I switched to using their video class instead.
This free You Tube video(see below) is an hour long and is spilt into chapters so you can easily find the bit you want. I made the bag up over several sewing sessions so it worked well for me to be able to sew 1 chapter of the video at a time. I found the video much easier to follow, and kept the instruction booklet to hand for if I wanted to quickly check something without having to rewind the video.
In the past I’ve found sewing circular projects tricky, but the instructions were very clear in the video and I had no problems with the bag coming together. I especially like the way they sew the lining to ensure it’s not baggy inside the bag as oftens happens with this type of bag.
Would I change anything?
I did find making the strap frustrating. They are very long, and I don’t have a turning tube (which is the method shown in the video). So, it was a very long, time consuming process to turn them through, so fiddly I had to use tweezers to pull it through. Personally, I would have used the method where you fold the raw edges inwards and then sew along the long edge to create the strap (trapping the raw edges inside the strap.) It would be a big time saver for anyone who doesn’t have a turning tube.
The finished bag is quite floppy and unstructured as you can see from the photo above. Which is great for storage, it means you can easily fold the bag up and store it until you need it, then once it’s in use and full of clothes it has more body. Personally, I prefer my bags to have more structure, to hold their shape even when empty. So, if I made this again, I would sew a piece of Vlieseline Style-vil bag foam onto the exterior bag panel to give it that body.
Overall thoughts on this kit
Even if you’ve never sewn a bag before if you watch the accompanying video it would be hard to go wrong. It’s a really good, detailed guide to constructing the bag. It’s easy to follow and the resulting bag looks great. It’s the perfect size for a weekend away, and the internal zip pocket is a nice touch (see above).
The fabric is the biggest selling point to me, it’s a gorgeous print which will make your bag stand out, plus it’s lovely and soft. There are 2 other gorgeous designs available as well, a William Morris fabric and Indian Elephants fabric, plus matching accessories like the velvet pouch kit which you could use as a make up bag or wash bag.
It may seem expensive at £47.99 for the kit but I’ve made weekender bags before and they cost a similar amount. By the time I pay for the pattern (around £10-£12) the fabric (£30+ as you need 2-3m) and the zips (around another £5) you’re paying around the same but you don’t get the video class or the bespoke fabric designed especially for this bag.
If you are looking for a beautiful weekender bag to sew I’d recommend this kit.
Find this kit, and many others on the Amber Makes website https://www.ambermakesco.com/
Find other kit, pattern and book reviews in our features section.
