[FancyNancy42]

I am having a TERRIBLE time trying to get the side and zipper panels to fit the lining pieces of the backpack – I know I have to ease, etc. but there is SO much fabric and I just cannot make it fit. Freya (granddaughter) coming from California at the end of the week and I just CANNOT make it work!!! I have checked to see if pieces cut out properly and sewn together properly and all seems in order – HELP, please!

[Liesl Gibson]

Apologies, FancyNancy. I just noticed your post.

Here are a couple of suggestions that might help:

1. If you run a basting stitch 1/2″ from the edges of the side panel, you can use them as a clipping guide so you’re not clipping into the stitching line itself. The more you clip near the areas that match the curves, the easier it will be.

2. Match the ends and the notches first. Then pin the straight areas, and ease in the curves last.

I hope that helps!

Cheers,

Liesl

[FancyNancy42]

Hi and thanks for the response! I am a pretty experienced sewer so tried both of these suggestions to no avail – what I am wondering is while I had a BIT of trouble sewing the side panels to the backpack itself, the lining is SO much smaller than the backpack (because the pack has a ‘body’ piece and the upper piece where the eyes go in the front), should I cut an additional piece for front and back lining that would make the pieces come closer in size? I want SO much to finish this – it is just so cute but I am SO frustrated – have put it aside and did NOT give it for Xmas as I had planned to 🙁

[sosew]

Nancy, I just finished sewing these together and found they matched pretty well. Did you notice that there is a different pattern piece for the lining vs the backpack front and back? That makes it the same size as the front of the pack once the front is sewn together.

I did find I needed to stretch the fabric on the backpack a bit to get it to fit the side panels