Backpack – Hopefully Creative

Taking a Dragon on a Walk

Now that I’m working from home, I need to see more friends on a daily basis. So I decided to make a friend who wouldn’t be influenced by quarantine. I bought the dragon backpack pattern from CholyKnight in December and never dared to actually start. It took until the stay-home-order and throwing the budget out the window to get going.

Getting the fabric was the biggest mental hurdle. Initially I wanted minky, which was what the pattern make advised. However, I was only able to find flat minky in Chinese webshops and not in any local-ish ones. There was some that had raised bumps, and I didn’t think a bumpy dragon would look good. In the end, I settled on something called wellness fleece and got a meter each of bright red, dark grey and black. Where the colours would go was to be the next hurdle. After some deliberation, the back was going to be grey, the belly red and the nails and horns black.

The pattern pieces were taped and cut from the fabric. My floor was COMPLETELY covered in fluff. Fluff everywhere. I only made two changes to the pattern and the first was to change the shape of the wings. There are four types of wings included in the pattern but none of them tickled my fancy. So I googled toothless wings and drafted a pattern based on that. I also decided that I wanted the wing-spine to be a different colour, so I cut that and figured out the order of operations. I was amazed that my sewing machine managed to get through 6 layers of fleece and a layer of foam.

I didn’t have many problems when sewing this new friend, although there were some. According to the pattern, an ‘advanced skill’ was to install a hidden tail pocket with an invisible zipper. This posed no problems. For some reason however, just basting on the bottom straps was the thing I had to rip out multiple times. Very frustrating.

The second change I made was to change the straps. The original pattern includes straps that are just webbing, but that isn’t very comfortable if you ask me. Therefore, I decided to draft some curved straps, based on the straps on my larp backpack. I even used the same fabric as I used for the bottom of those straps. The plan was originally to use back webbing and strap adjusters, but the local sewing shop only had 2 cm and 3 cm wide webbing and 2.5 cm adjusters so that wasn’t going to work. I was very happy to find 2.5 cm wide red webbing in some deep dark recesses of my hoard. That was sewn on top of the straps with some dense zigzag.

Finally, I managed to put the remainer of my new friend together – taking some extra care around the straps to make sure they weren’t sewn into the seam. Cursing a little here and there when there were lots of layers and finally handsewing the last details in place. Once he was done, I took him on an outing to the supermarket to show him life outside my house. He’s probably going to be quite useful since his main pocket is quite large, I can fit most of my underarm in there.

So far, he’s wonderful and I hope that I can show him around to more people.

Deadline Work (6) – Backpack Finished!

Last but not least, the backpack. The backpack has been chronicled before (here, here, here, here), but I didn’t post the finished thing. I think that was because I wanted to test run it to see what improvements were needed. I only found two, the closures were not tight enough so there was some movement and the pack didn’t close easily. In the .. say 2 hours before I left for the event and on the car ride there I managed to get those issues sorted.

The solution to the first problem was to stitch the little round bits down further. Now they are attached over about a centimeter instead of the single line in the middle they were before. This worked very well when tried out in real life larp. You can just about see it in the picture below.

The solution to the second problem was to attach a small tie to close the front and the back. This was easily incorporated and works very well as a simple closure.

Now, as you may have gathered, I gather a lot of stuff. I like to store all that stuff somewhere and that was what the back was for originally. This is what it looks like when all the books and papers are taken out. It is almost full when all of that is also in there.

Last but not least, the front and back. I’m very happy with those straps, they carry very nicely and were a nice copy of some straps of another backpack that I own. I’m still very surprised that that worked out as well as it did.

And now the working to a deadline saga has finished. I’m going to see if I still have inspiration to actually make something in the coming days. As always, keep getting creative!

Backpack (intermediate 3)

After almost finishing the outside of the backpack, I decided to work a little more on the inside of the backpack. I had made the lining first, but found out that it didn’t really fit that well inside so I had to redo some bits.

The lining started out like this: all pockets and a flat bit of fabric. Some markings are present from my first attempt at creating the shape. I did the exact same thing, but made it a little smaller. I forgot to take turn of the cloth into account.

After re-measuring and re-sewing the lining I had a square bag. I reinforced the bottom such that it would hopefully stand up straight. You can see how it looks from the inside on the right.

While having the lining almost ready was great, I couldn’t actually put it in yet. I still needed to add the closing loop to the outside of the backpack, and maybe some more pockets. I would like to have that nicely finished and then drop the lining in, so it’s invisible from the inside. So onto the pocket making!

Backpack (intermediate 2)

I’ve been diligently working on the backpack for a while now. Before starting the embroidery (results here) I managed to close the straps, by attaching the front to the back with an overcast stitch, where I attempted to keep the stitches straight and not angled. After finishing the embroidery I overcast the flap pieces together. Before starting the embroidery I had already made a welt type hole in the front for the closure that I am going to make (I just found out I made it in the wrong direction, not very clever of me, but this way will probably work too). So now I have straps and a flap. If you look closely you can see the stitches.

The straps are connected to the bottom with ribbon. Therefore, they can be tied and retied if the backpack needs to be adjusted. I don’t know yet if this will actually work, but hopefully I’ll see during the April 11-13 road test. Below you see the backpack with the straps attached.

The straps were based of a backpack that I really like the straps of. So I just copied them and cut them out in the skai leather. Then I cut them in something resembling fake suede. The fake suede was stitched (by machine) right sides together to a piece of flannel and a bit of batting was put inside such that the straps would be comfortable. It was then turned inside out and overcast to the skai bits. I think it turned out quite well.

Now on the the last couple of steps.

Backpack (intermediate 1)

I’ve been working on my backpack since I previously mentioned it (here). I sadly did not finish it by the time I wanted to use it for a Larp special, which was the 15th of March. However, during that special something happened that made me rethink the pack a little, more on that later. The day of and on the way to the special I had been working furiously on the bag. I managed to get the straps on, although the fronts were not sewn to the backs yet. I added the flap in its two parts (front and back). I sort of sewed the lining in. It clearly was not finished yet.

During the special, I found out that they wanted me to become a priest (I did not want that, but they made me anyway). So I figured I’ll embroider a raven (the symbol of the god I was to be a priest of) on the flap. Luckily I had not yet closed the front and back of the flap, so I could easily embroider something on the back. I did a quick Google search, found a magnificent picture and decided that this was so much for personal use that I could use it. On the left you see the original, click it for the link to the source. On the right is my embroidery.

Sometime before starting this piece I read a blog post about filling in embroidery using long and short stitches (here), to be able to create directional embroidery. It’s not as clear but I know I’ve used it and I think it works a lot better than stitching willy nilly, which I used to do before.

So on with the rest of the bag. I’m getting there!! The new deadline is the 11th of April. I hope I’ll manage.

Backpack beginnings

As you might now, I wander around a larp field sometimes in a skirt with a lot of pockets (here). Since I also stuff those pockets, at the end of an event my hips are usually not very happy with me. The skirt is heavy and difficult to manoeuver in. So I figured I’d make myself a larp backpack, ages ago. I started well, creating a pinterest board with inspiration for a backpack. Some of the pins are shown below. (Click the picture for the link.)

That’s were my plans ended. However, Friday, after I had a meeting with my orthodontist (I hate my teeth), my plans were put back in motion. This is because I went to the thrift store where I found some nice blueish/blackish fake leather and strong light linnenish fabric. I spent the night drawing my new backpack, which will be a combination between the top left pin, the top right pin and the bottom right pin. See the design below (with the ‘pattern’ sketched out to scale). It’s a bit vague, but the light here is crap and the drawing is little. It might not end up like the sketch though, we’ll see.

Now the reason I wanted the backpack was to be able to not overfill the pockets on my skirt. However, I figured that if I would just dump everything into the backpack, I’d never find anything again. Since I do this in real life, I have experienced searching through backpacks, but it’s not very practical, to say the least. So the light fabric was to be the lining of the pack, with a multitude of pockets again. Strips of were added to make pockets with a fold, so that they could be opened up to hold vials and such without distorting the lining shape. Other pockets were flat. I will add some more to the side that’s only got the one line of vial holders.

Well that’s where I’ve ended now. I’m planning to have it finished by Saturday but the real deadline for it is somewhere in May, so I’d better make that. I am now seriously hoping that the fake leather stuff will cooperate, I’m afraid that that will be the most difficult part.

Tag: Backpack