With a birthday on the way, I decided that baby D needed something to hold some of his fun little toys. He is not yet walking, but it won't be long, I'm sure, and with school just around the corner (we start in early August around here), I looked for a small backpack to make for him. After searching online, I found the perfect project over at The Ribbon Retreat, the Toddler Backpack. And it was free!
Rather than an actual pattern, she gives cutting directions via printable drawings with measurements. These were easy to decipher, but I decided to draw a pattern on freezer paper just to be sure that all my pieces were the same. I picked out these fun fabrics to use for this project.
I began by cutting out all the pieces of the main fabric, the lining and the suggested interfacing. While interfacing is not necessary for the backpack, I was glad that I decided to use some as it helped to give it some body. I didn't have any iron-on interfacing on hand, so I just basted around all of the edges to hold it into place. I also decided to add ready-made piping to the edges and I really like the contrast it added.
The only problem I encountered was with the straps---the measurements given are to cut strips that are 6" wide. Once folded and sewn as directed, the straps measure about 1.5" wide which is too wide for the strap adjusters (which only come in 1" width, locally anyway). She does address this a bit in her directions, but not clearly, and I already had sewn my straps on before I realized that they wouldn't fit well. I went ahead and used them anyway, and while it makes them bunch up a bit, I was not bothered by that enough to re-do that part.
It has pockets on the inside (I did my own version of these) and I used a sport zipper for ease in zipping.
I even added a little tag with his name on it (since the pocket embroidery didn't turn out so great).
The finished product turned out pretty cute and I can't wait to make one for baby B when he gets a little bigger.
Originally, I thought I would embroider baby D's name on a pocket for the front of the backpack. However, my machine got all wacky while embroidering, so I opted to just turn that part inside and you can't even tell.
The one other addition I made was that I added a small "loop" to the straps to contain the dangling part of the straps.
Be First to Post Comment !
So cute!! I'm sure Baby B will like one when he's a little bit older :)
Post a Comment