Toddler Backpack and Pouches

My friend Ashley's daughter is turning 2 and I wanted to give her something that was homemade and functional. I've read in Ashley's blog that Emmy loves her stickers so I figured why not make her a little backpack and pouches to put her stickers in. (Since we celebrated today I can post :) )

First I found this awesome tutorial and since the author made her backpack for a two year old I was lucky to be able to use the same measurements. You could easily adjust this for an older child though. Instead of using her face template I decided to attach a letter "E" to make it personal for Emerson. I found that corderoy was a great fabric to use since its easy to work with but has enough weight and structure to keep the backpack from being too flimsy. For this project I also used my button hole foot and button foot on my sewing machine and boy am I in love. Sewing buttons is too much fun now that I have found such an easy way to do it. I also added a small button to the front flat to keep the backpack closed when being worn.

After finishing the backpack I realized that it was neccessary to have something to put inside.

I found another great tutorial from Make It and Love It. This was the first time I have sewn with vinyl and zippers so her suggestions were very helpful. First and foremost when sewing with vinyl you need to help make the surface less "sticky." You can do this with scotch tape like Ashley suggests or even use tissue paper between the vinyl and your sewing machine surface. I opted for the tape since I didn't want to have to fight with a zipper, vinyl and tissue paper. I also learned the NOTHING about vinyl is forgiving. If you mess up and take out your stitches be prepared to cut another piece of vinyl because you are going to see each and every hole your needle made. When sewing on the multi-colored rick rack I tried to sew without securing it and boy was it crooked. So I decided to use scotch tape to hold in in place and quickly discovered that it left behind an unsightly residue. Since I sewed a crooked line from my initial rick rack attempt I needed a new piece of vinyl and this time I put the tape on my jeans first to make them a little less sticky. This time when I used it to hold down the rick rack it came up very easily and left behind no residue. For the smaller pouch I used velcro to keep it together (much easier than a zipper by the way) and for a little extra something attached a button (have I mentioned how easy it is to sew a button on with your machine??)  So now I have a backpack for little miss Emmy and some fun pouches to put inside! Hope she likes them!