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Lots of ads lately for racntangular backpacks like the Kranken or the Cabaîa. I find them rather nice and I thought: “What about sewing one that is inspired by them?”
I chose Noodlehead’s Making backpack and sewed the mini version (before committing to sewing the larger version).
A pettern…without pattern pieces!
I ordered the Making PDF pattern on Noodlehead’s website.
The price was a bit steep: $11.
As I wrote in the title, no pattern piece is provided. You have to draw your rectangles.
It bugged me a bit considering the rather high price. That’s right we will be saving ink and paper, but it irritated me nonetheless.
The instructions were not user-friendly: common measurements for both bags then differences, asterisks, etc. A bit of everything everywhere. If you’re new to bag making, I wouldn’t start with this one.
Once I was sure about the various measurments for my many rectangles, I traced and cut them.
My Harry Potter mini Making
As soon as I settled on the pattern, I knew I wanted a touch of magic in/on it.
Some heavy waterproof navy blue canvas* gifted by Minerva along with some HP-themed fabric from Camelot fabric I got from a French store.
A long list of suitable interfacings is in the booklet. Since I used heavy canvas, I skipped all of them, but H250 for my lining. I pondered whether switching G700 in lieu of H250. I had had bad experiences with H250, but decided to try it again…I shouldn’t have. I just hate the feeling of H250 on fabric.
Sewing this bag is rather straightforward, once you have read the instructions a thousand times.
Customization and inner bag
I added this Hogwarts patch on the front pocket. Since waterproff canvas had a plastic backing, I didn’t fuse the patcch. Instead I put a spot of fabric glu.
The inner bag deserves closer examination. The lining is sewn to the main bag, leaving the edges raw. That means binding all of the raw edges.
I honestly dislike binding BUT it gives more structure to a bag.
The designer instructs to sew the binding in the seam allowances, leaving the assembly stitches visible. I didn’t like that way of proceeding so I placed the binding almost at the seamline and it covered it. Nicer!
I did some modifcations because…isn’t it why we sew?
- I wanted a convertible bag so I sewed an adjustable strap.
- I added a pocket to the back.
None of these changes were tricky. I added D rings to the zipper tabs. My plan was to use Jalie’s Galaxie 5 trick for the converitble bag, but I forgot! So I sewed a length of webbing.
The bag being rather small, large swivel hooks would have been too heavy. I went with 25 mm ones and cut fabric connectors. These are the two amazing video tutorials I used: one is for connectors and the other is for an adjustable strap with fabric connectors.
In my opinion
I’m really torn between “I like it” and “well…the end result is cute, but the process was painful”.
The instructions and measurements are not accurate. For instance, they say to cut the same length for the handles. I didn’t: the handles would have been way too long on the mini backpack.
Sewing was fun, but I was always wondering if I didn’t forget anything.
I don’t think I’ll sew the larger version. I’ll probably try my hand at another backpack pattern.
Stay tuned!
