I love doing pattern release posts, it's how I get to introduce you to my latest brain-child and share all the hard work my testers put in.
The Keanu Backpack (purchase it here) is your full-size backpack for the student, the commuter or the traveller! It's a structured bag that stands on it's own, and well structured to ensure that everything is durable. I have been carrying a leather version for a number of months as I take my 15" laptop everywhere for work, and it's been perfect and eye-catching all at the same time! And then my testers have really done an amazing job on this.
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Features
The Keanu Backpack is a large backpack featuring a padded laptop pocket that rests right against your back for security and great weight distribution, those laptops get heavy! Fully padded curved backpack straps allow you to carry everything comfortably, even when you have stuffed this bag full! The interior of the main compartment contains two zipper pockets (both are important as they are used for turning your bag right side out), and then the front of the bag has a unique curved front zipper pocket with a pleat at the bottom that lets you hold so much in one pocket! There is so much creative opportunity in this bag, you can add slip pockets or beverage pockets to the interior or exterior, add organizer slip pockets to the front pocket, anything!!!
Currently this design comfortably holds most 15" laptops, whether they are 15.6" or 15.8", watch for a future add-on to fit your 17" laptop as you know your gamer friend is going to want one of those!!!
The Pattern
The pattern for the Keanu Backpack includes diagrams for every single step, making things clear as you move through the design, pattern pieces for all the curved pieces, and fabric layout diagrams so you can optimize your fabric usage with less waste.
(These diagrams are ONLY applicable if you are NOT fussy cutting or directional fabric - if you are using directional fabric, planning to pattern match your fabric or fussy cut items, you WILL need more fabric and WILL need a different layout).
The Tester Photos
This set of testing was a true challenge because I made everyone work over the holiday season, but honestly, my testers have blown me away with their creativity and incredible attention to detail. I don't think there is a single tester in my team that I would trade out for anything!!!
Michelle did the very first pre-test, so she got to deal with that very first set of bugs - I applaud her for working through some of those truly ridiculous errors that we had to fix!!! And she had this AWESOME bag at the end! And it's staged so you can see stuff with it!
We have Sue of Dreamscape Studios (Instagram here)who went with a completely different plan than everyone else and had this amazing printed cordura fabric that she used. She did cordura inside and out, and did a couple of tweaks to get that thicker fabric to work for her, not for the faint of heart at all!!! But it's just stunning!
Mary-Nell of Nellie Blue's Place (Instagram here) used the best Dragon Fabric in the world, and even mixed up a couple of the prints from the fabric line to come up with this fantastic looking Dragon Bag!
Mae of Isabella Sparsh (Instagram here) had to work harder than anyone else since she, unfortunately, broke her wrist partway through our test. But she called in reinforcements and had a friend work through it with her, and I love what they came out with!!! I hope you're still resting that wrist Mae!!
Tara of Mooi Designs is actually the one that named our Backpack, Keanu is the name of one of her sons. She didn't only do one backpack, but she did a second and then a third at the event I taught the backpack at.... I'm calling her my over-achiever right now LOL
Abbe of Just an E (Instagram here) went all fun with skulls and some incredible zipper pulls on her rainbow zippers, I keep seeing more things on her bag that I love, every time I open her photos.... The girly skulls are so fantastic!
And you know there are others in the background making my patterns as amazing as they are, my proofreaders Jen of Sincerely Jen Patterns and Cyndi of Nosy Pepper Patterns - they keep my punctuation and typos in line!
My whole team does so much work for me, I don't think there is any way I can ever truly thank them enough!!