Flying Barrel Of Monkeys

MonkeyBoy loves to carry things. He especially loves to carry things in bags. He calls backpacks “pack-packs” and delights in dragging around the ones that MonkeyMan and I use to take our things to work.

MonkeyBoy started pre-school last week and one of the things he needed was his own backpack. We have one that was a freebie at some pregnancy fair we attended while expecting Monkeyboy, but it is embroidered with the name of a child care chain. I dislike using my son for advertising, especially for something he didn’t even attend, so I wanted to get him a different backpack for school. I found one at the Disney outlet on sale that would have worked but the fabric kind of creeped me out and then there’s that advertising thing again.

So then I wondered if I could sew a backpack. A quick Google search directed me to to the most wonderful tutorial at Made By Rae. Since I had a little spending cash in my Paypal account I purchased the tutorial and am so glad I did. I’ve never done binding (didn’t even know what it was or where to find it at the fabric store), zippers, or quilting (the bottom), but I was able to start and finish a backpack for MonkeyBoy today – laboring over the sewing machine on Labor Day. I used leftover scraps of fabric from MonkeyBoy’s bedding, fused to canvas (something else new!).

There are things I’d do better next time around and I need to find a way to finish the interior seams to keep them from fraying, but I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out. I’m a little sad I won’t get to see MonkeyBoy’s reaction since I’ll be at work in the morning. Hopefully he’ll like it.