I was so pleased with the backpack that I made for my niece that I decided to make one for myself! If you’re interested in making a kids backpack rather than an adult one then you can read about my niece’s one here:
Here’s how I found making the larger size:
The fabric
I bought the materials for this backpack from Mark Pickles Sewing Studio in Bath. I spent a long time in the shop trying to decide what to go for, there were just so many great fabrics! I decided to go with a cotton canvas which they had in a lot of different colors, in the end I went for an army green which is similar to the example backpack on the Ikatee website. I had a lot of fun deciding on the lining, and I went for a quilting cotton with a jigsaw puzzle design.
This pattern also requires some hardware, and I had almost enough left over from when I made it for my niece but I needed some tri-glide sliders- I ended up buying these from Etsy, and they weren’t a perfect match but good enough. I also needed some webbing, and I bought this from Mark pickles sewing studio. When I made this backpack for my niece I used quite a heavy weight webbing which was difficult to sew, so I ended up going for a lighter weight webbing in this time.
The pattern
I have written about the pattern before so I won’t repeat myself but this time I decided to make the medium size. I also bought the wadding rather than using a pre-quilted fabric.
The challenges
The biggest challenge with this pattern is cutting out all the pieces and being organized, but when it came to the actual sewing it was very straightforward and the instructions are really nice and clear. The canvas I bought creases quite easily and so I had to use the iron a bit more than normal. Including the wadding was an extra step that did add on quite a lot of making time, so I think if I make another backpack I would go with the pre-quilted fabric option. But overall it was good fun making this.
The final result
I am a little bit surprised that this backpack doesn’t feel more rigid. It has quite a lot of substance with the heavy canvas along with the wadding and the lining, but I think the larger size means the pieces are bigger and this causes more flexibility compared with the smaller size.
I really like the fact that the design has a laptop pocket which is padded, and this is a perfect size for my laptop. I also love the water bottle pocket, this works really well for me when I’m traveling because I always travel with a bottle of water. The canvas itself looks great, and I love the puzzle lining. I think I need to customize the outside a little bit because currently I think it looks a bit boring- I might add a patch or two, or maybe do some embroidery. But overall I absolutely adore my new backpack and have already used it loads.
The sewing resolution 