Baby backpack

Once upon a time, there was a small child who needed a smart backpack for his new job of going to nursery. In stepped his fairy dog mother, who had the magic sewing skills required to pull off such a project. Using the Raspberry rucksack pattern, by Sarah Kirsten, she sewed a tiny backpack, made with remnant upholstery wool and lined with adorable cotton sheep print fabric. You can probably guess, as a regular reader of this fine blog, that the fairy dog mother is me. Ta da!

I’ve made this pattern twice before, once in sail cloth for my gran, and once in waxed cotton for me. My gran’s version is still in use, but mine sadly didn’t work out for me (the fabric wasn’t stiff enough to hold it’s shape) and was sold on Depop. Both were good learning experiences though, leading to this version for an adorable small child in my life.

I knew from my failed version, that I needed a thick, stiff, upholstery-type fabric, to allow the backpack to hold it’s classic boxy shape. I had a large piece of navy wool fabric leftover from my Closet Core dog coats, which had a polyester scrim backing. This is a layer of polyester applied onto the back of a piece of fabric, to give it a weight and stiffness often required in upholstery sewing. The wool was good quality, with a lovely deep navy colour and a soft feel. Since it was a backpack for a child, I lined it with a light cotton lawn, printed with sheep, designed and bought from Katie Green. The cotton lawn appears to be sold out in their shop, but the linen is still available.

There’s not much more to say about this pattern, that I haven’t already said before! It’s a nice, straightforward pattern to follow, although some of the steps are a little fiddly. I still haven’t mastered a smart finish for applying the front pocket to the bag, and in this version I rounded the corners out, to make it easier for small fingers navigating the zip. I found in both of the previous versions, the zip struggles around the sharp corners, which would make me concerned it would eventually break in these areas. Anyone who’s ever tried to replace a zip will know it’s not much fun, and I wanted to avoid anything that made the bag difficult to use for its intended recipient. Rounding the corners does mean it loses some of that classic ‘Fjallraven’ look, but in my opinion it’s worth missing out a small amount of style for higher practicality, in something to be used by a child. The chunky yellow zip was from Etsy and was a nice contrast to the navy, without being too childlike.

I would like to make another one of these bags for me (they come in a ‘little’ and ‘big’ size) but would prefer proper padded backpack straps. My version (the one sold on Depop) used the webbing straps recommended in the pattern, but I found these were uncomfortable personally. A quick google ‘how to make padded backpack straps’ shows this is entirely possible, so perhaps I’ll attempt that at some point in the future. In the meantime though, this is the smartest version of the Raspberry rucksack I’ve made so far, and I’m really pleased with the outcome. Hopefully it’ll give the small kid in question lots of use and joy for many years to come!