Groovy Backpack Plus Camp 2019

Groovy Backpack Plus Camp Projects

     Just finished a fun week of teaching three girls to make a backpack from pre-quilted fabric and a couple of zippered pouches.  They finished so quickly that we had time to make a small cross body purse.

Annie and her backpack

     The backpack pattern was from an old Fons and Porter quilting magazine and I found the half square zippered pouch pattern free on Craftsy/Bluprint.  The cross body bag is one I got when I took my educator training many years ago.

Annie and her projects

     Annie chose a pretty peachy pink floral quilted fabric that had a paisley design on the other side.  She used the paisley print for her pocket.  She then used one of her blue floral fat quarters for the trim fabric.  I let her choose a fat quarter from my stash for the other half of her zippered pouch.

Libby and her backpack

Libby and her projects

     Libby chose a cheery daisy print fabric with a gingham back side.  She opted to do the pocket and straps from the gingham side.  She had three coordinating purple print fat quarters for her zippered pouches.  She used the other half of Reese's purple zipper with  a white zipper pull for one of her pouches since only half of each zipper was needed for each pouch.

Reese and her backpack

Reese and her projects

     Reese's quilted fabric was more subdue, black with white quilting lines and a red and black buffalo check on the other side.  Since she chose a pretty pastel blue for her trim fabric she opted not to use the reverse side at all, instead we turned her pocket piece sideways do the diamond quilting was side to side instead of up and down like on the rest of the backpack.  Because her backpack was more plain, she did a decorative stitch on the trim piece with a variegated thread.  She chose two shades of blue and a light purple batik like print for her fat quarters.  She had a light blue zipper and a light purple one.


     The girls decided to make pull tabs from a strip of fabric to add to their zippers after seeing it on a sample purse I had made.  Like I said earlier, they worked so quickly that I had to come up with another project.  We decided on the 2 hour purse that I have taught many times.  They had enough fabric left from their other projects as well as enough fusible fleece.  I didn't want to have to send the moms out shopping at the last minute so I decided they would just choose a zipper from my stash.  I didn't think I would have cord for them but when we were looking through my stuff we found a piece of pretty pink rattail cord for Reese and a spool of flat cord trim that Annie and Libby used.

     They had fun swapping fabric scraps to make their purses.  Annie used the bright batik I had given her for the outside and turquoise from Reese for the inside.  Libby chose the peachy pink floral from Annie for the outside and used her yellow flower print for the inside.  Reese used the light blue from her backpack for the outside and a purple and white print from Libby for the inside.

     Whew, lots of sewing and tons of smiles.  Annie, Libby and Reese you did a great job.