I'm excited to share with you today a review of a new pattern designer, Erin of Diedelbug Handmade. If you're already familiar with the name, you may have seen some of Erin's AMAZING custom made bags for sale. Her custom work is seriously to die for! To celebrate her first review on Pattern Revolution, Erin is offering 20% off the Tiny Explorer pattern in her Craftsy Shop through Sunday May 25th (no code needed) and offering a giveaway of a 3 pattern pack at the end of this post!

Hi there, Stephanie here from Sew Van-Tastic. I recently had the pleasure of getting the opportunity to check out the new Tiny Explorer Backpack from Diedelbug Handmade.

The timing was perfect, as my daughter just started going to preschool a couple of weeks ago, and she needed something to carry a couple of small things back and forth. I really loved the size of this backpack. I found that the toddler backpacks you find in the store were too small, and the child size were a little bit too big for my 2 and a half year old. The Tiny Explorer Backpack was the perfect size. It'd probably be really great as a mama backpack too. It really has a lot of pockets for anything you might need to tote around!

I really liked the idea of being able to customize a backpack for my daughter. I was really unhappy with the selections offered in retail stores, in design and quality. I wanted to be able to customize something for my daughter that fit my her personality, and would be very well made. I was especially excited that K & C Supplies offered to supply authentic YKK zippers for this project.

K & C Supplies has a wide variety of zippers and other notions that are perfect for making bags. I would recommend using a #5 zipper for the main compartment on this project. A #5 zipper has a little bit wider teeth, as well as a wider strip of fabric on either side of the zipper. This will make assembling the entire bag a little bit easier, plus I find that the zippers move more smoothly. K & C shipped quickly, there was no delay in getting started on my project.

At first, I was intimidated by all of the piping and zippers on this project, but Erin at Diedelbug does a great job of explaining the steps to you, and makes inserting the zipper a cinch. I was really pleased with the way the bag turned out. The hardest part of making this bag was all of the cutting and fusing. I would still rate this pattern as intermediate, because some of the steps assume your basic knowledge of sewing techniques.

Overall, I'm super happy with the way the bag turned out, and my daughter LOVES her "PackPack" for school. I'd also recommend adding the Tiny Artist coloring book crayon roll from Diedelbug to your list of projects, and it'd be a perfect addition to the contents of your Tiny Explorer Backpack!