Backpack and Dingle Dangles

Lately, I’ve been on a Disney roll embroidering items for a good friend.   This backpack was a fearsome task, making me wonder if it was a mistake to take it on.   It brought to mind my “sewing in a cave” experience monogramming a large tote bag.  I did NOT want to repeat that.

The bag was a Christmas gift for grandson Alastair’s favorite pre-school teacher.  Then I tackled another one for my dear Aunt Rheeta.  But it was no fun at all!

But embroidering this backpack was a very different experience.  My Brother Quattro has an “applique” feature that made this sort of undertaking much more manageable. And it seems with some effort, it could be done on other embroidery machines.

The Disney gang was embroidered on white denim and and outlined with a straight stitch about 1/4″ away from the outer design edges.  That piece was removed from the hoop and trimmed to just a few threads outside the straight  stitch outline.

Next, the backpack was turned inside out.  The zippered pocket flap was basted to hooped stabilizer.  The outline was repeated on that piece.

With a glue stick, the embroidered piece was then applied to the backpack, matching outlines.  It was like a child’s cut and paste activity book,  matching up the outlines.  Then the satin stitch joined the two pieces and covered the raw edge of the white denim.

Voila!  Sooo much easier than working in a bag “cave” and stitching all the embroidery directly onto the backpack.

So what about the dingle dangles? Here they are.

Each character hangs from its own ribbon. Don’t let the photo deceive you. I just lined them up with the lower character ribbons behind the uppers so all that ribbon wasn’t cluttering up the pic.

I have it on  good authority that kids like to hang something like keychains from the straps of their backpacks.  Of course, those dingle dangles/keychains reflect the student’s interest, thus the Disney characters for this child.

These were made using that same applique feature on my Quattro that was used on the backpack.  The only difference is that these are free-standing.

The embroidery was done on stiff craft felt to give them some rigidity.  For backing color matched cotton was used.  What a fun project!  I might even try those Pokemon designs on dingle dangles for kindergarten grandson Alastair to hang from his backpack.

There were lots of other Disney projects that I will detail later.  Finally, they have all been handed off to my friend.  Whew!  Now I’m on to Vivian Rose’s Easter dress and I’m loving it.

The dress is made from Wendy Schoen’s Petite Poche Alice pattern, with ultra sheer dusty aqua Swiss batiste.  I’m loving it.  More on that later.

So where are you all with your Easter sewing? And have you seen dingle dangles hanging from backpacks?