Your Toddler Needs You to Make Them a Lovey Backpack

Are there times you wish you could bring your child’s lovey somewhere, but you are afraid it will end up on the ground, in a puddle, or being hugged by a coughing friend? Or even worse….lost forever. I run into this problem ALL the time. My 2 1/2 year old daughter is very attached to her lovey named Lumpy and it makes me shudder thinking of all the places she has been. I just made this super fun lovey backpack for her to carry Lumpy in and I am so excited about how much cleaner she will stay.

Even though this lovey backpack took some sewing, it was really easy. The problems I did run into I will highlight below and show you how you can avoid making the same mistakes.

How to Make a Lovey Backpack

Materials:

• Cardstock
• Elastic
• Fabric – check out 5 Ways to Get Fabric For Free or Cheap
• Thread
• Pins
• Scissors
• Sewing machine – this did take some sewing, but I promise its not too hard. Keep in mind that this is for a stuffed animal so it doesn’t have to turn out perfect.

Setup:

To setup, I picked out and cut my fabric. My daughter was awake while I made this project, so I let her pick out the fabric. Her favorite color is purple, so of course she picked purple. If your fabric is as wrinkly as mine is, take the time to iron it, I regretted not doing so.

I then laid Lumpy on a piece of paper and cut it until it looked like it would hold her well. Remember that there will be seams, so make it on the bigger side. I made mine a little too small, but thankfully Lumpy squishes so she still fits. Then, trace your paper onto your fabric and cut out two.

Then cut out two long strips of fabric for the straps. This is where I went wrong in almost every way. I made mine about the same height as the backpack pieces and it just barely fits on my daughter. Once she grows at all, I will have to make her a new one. I also made them way too skinny. You will see later how this wasted a lot of time. So learn from my mistakes and make your straps a little longer than the backpack and fairly thick (they will be folded in half).

Creating:

Now that you have all your fabric, it’s time to get started pinning and sewing. The first thing to sew is the straps. Take one of your long strips of fabric, fold it in half, and pin it. If your fabric has a pattern, fold it so that the pattern is on the inside. Then sew down the long side. Repeat with the other long strip.

Now turn both fabric tubes inside out. If you listened to my earlier advice and made them wide, this will be pretty easy. If you didn’t, it will take FOREVER. I’m not sure why I didn’t just cut new pieces of fabric at this point.

The next thing to sew is the backpack. Place the two larger pieces of fabric together with the patterned side facing in. Pin around all but the top edge. Before you sew, you need to place the straps inside. I removed just the pins on the corners to sneak the straps in. The gold overlay on the picture is approximately where the straps were on the inside. Make sure they are not touching any other edges so they don’t get sewn in anywhere weird. Now sew all three edges.

The last step is to sew the top hem and put in the elastic. You can skip the elastic, but I think it holds the lovey in and away from danger better. I folded over the top edge so that my overlap was a little bit wider than the elastic. Then I pinned and sewed it, leaving a small gap to feed the elastic through. I then cut my elastic and threaded it through my seam. I used a safety pin on one end to help guide it. Then I sewed the elastic together and sewed the small gap closed.

Outcome:

Once I turned it right side out, I had a super cool lovey backpack. My daughter absolutely adores it! She immediately wanted to take Lumpy “hiking” around the backyard.

Make a backpack for your child’s lovey too and stress a little less about taking it to public places. Please comment below where your child has brought their lovey backpack. If you want more ideas on what to sew to help encourage your kid’s pretend play, check out this lovey sleep sack.