After five years we finally decided to go to Serbia again, and this time chose to fly Turkish and transfer in Istanbul, instead of the usual Paris or Frankfurt, and that way completely bypassing EU, which was nice. It’s been the longest flight we ever took – 12h SEA – IST, then 2h more IST-BEG, and same deal on the way back. All the flights were quite uneventful, like no pilot or passenger died suddenly or had “medical emergency”, there were no fights, freak-outs, or “I’m telling you right now: that MoFo is NOT fuckin’ real!” – none of that! Things seen on the screens likely have nothing to do with our experience, but we often accept them unquestioningly, and think “it’s just the way it is”, when it isn’t for vast majority of people.
Leading up to the trip, I realized that kids need some kind of bags or backpacks to keep their tablets in. So, being in the mood for sewing, I went to work, and it had to be done fast, since the flight date approached rather quickly. I thought of 3D printing the slide-in buckles, and buying some nylon straps. However, when ordering nylon straps, I found out that these straps are usually sold with the buckles in matching color, and strap only either was sold for nearly the same price, or in the amount that I would never use up, so I just bought strap and buckle set in greenish-brown. These straps and buckles didn’t match the fabric colors that my daughter picked for her backpack, plus they didn’t ship yet at the time I started working on hers, so I just made that backpack with what I had. My boy’s backpack was a bit more involved, since it had two side pockets. Here’s what they look like:
The kitty-blue backpack has a 3D printed zipper attachment, a cat paw that was modeled after one of the paws from the paw themed fabric. I used a magnet closure, but it wasn’t holding too well. When the back pack was full and in use, it would just snap off, so I stitched in the straps with carabiner closure; had to undo a portion of the front pocket to insert and stitch in the lower strap. My trusty Pfaff 130 had no problem stitching through multiple layers of nylon strap, fabric and fusible fleece. Instead of putting eyelets and running a chord through them, I decided to do a carabiner closure on straps to keep the top of the bags together, and it looks like this:
There are inside pockets on both backpacks: the kitty-blue one has single welt pocket and the red-green has zippered pocket. The straps are only adjustable on the red-green one, since it is large enough to be used when my boy gets fully grown, whereas the kitty-blue backpack is pretty small, and my daughter has already outgrown one that was even smaller.
The biggest challenge with both of these backpacks was attaching the front and side pockets and their lids. Before attaching, the pockets were complete with batting, lining and quilting, and it wasn’t so much the stitching that was difficult, but rather positioning them correctly and inserting the pins to hold them in place along the edge of the fold that was ironed, but barely held up because of the thickness. Anyway, it was a fun quick project and I’m glad I did it, because backpacks were well received, came in handy and provided me with a backpack sewing experience 🙂
