Sewing Summit - one more month!!

One month from now I'll be in Salt Lake City for the Sewing Summit! I can't believe it's almost time already!
If you've been following along on their website, you'll know that they've been hosting a series on bags and such for travel (travel to the Summit that is!). I finally got my act together and made up a couple travel items for myself.

First I made this awesome purse. You can see by my pinterest board that I've been thinking of making myself a new purse for a while. I've had three problems with this idea, 1) I don't like buying patterns, 2) I don't like following patterns, 3) I don't tend to have more than a FQ/quarter yard of any one fabric in my stash... (with the exception of fabrics that are designated to a specific project). I decided on a whim to cut into the yard of the new AMH fabric that I had (after declaring my need to buy the blue color-way for my mom's quilt instead) - and used a great pair of corduroy pants that I have loved forever (but the button ripped on them so they're not wearable/repairable). The seam you see down the middle of the corduroy side happens to be the side seam of the pants... This pattern barely fit! :)

I used this tutorial from very purple person. It was very straightforward and not hard at all. I put this bag together in just an hour or two one evening. I didn't use any interfacing at all - since the corduroy has a bit of weight to it already. I don't think my pattern pieces printed out at the right size - from the pictures her bag is a bit bigger than mine, but I like mine just as well. And I only used about half a yard of my beloved AMH fabric! So I can make more pretties with the leftovers.

I have thought about ripping out a couple stitches to add a magnetic button, but since it's reversible I can't see a way to make that work... any ideas??

Then last night I decided on a whim to make a couple cute luggage tags for the trip too. Although I'm not planning on checking any luggage, I'm sure this will look just as well on my carry-on. I followed this tutorial pretty loosely - and used a freezer ziploc bag instead of the plastic stuff she'd had on hand. So far it seems to have held up pretty nicely. I made one for my friend too - I hope she gets a kick out of it when she gets it in the mail! :)