Fabulous Fanny Pack

My daughter and I wanted to make a birthday present for a friend who likes carrying around a book to read, but has lately had trouble with her hands. My daughter suggested a fanny pack might be nice...

My daughter practically had to duck as scraps and salvaged bits of whatnot came flying out of my craft room! That pink Disney Princess backpack that had given a zipper to my yoga bag still had another zipper, buckles, and shoulder straps to give. Another bag donated a black plastic buckle. And of course there was another pair of jeans to recycle!

The Process

We cut off the top part of the jeans and stitched down the zipper fly so it couldn't open.


Probably the hardest part was installing the zipper from the Princess backpack, since the jeans top was still a tube. We had to undo the bottoms of all the belt loops so the zipper seam could go behind them, and we still had all those thick jeans seams to sew through.

We reclosed the belt loops and installed the backpack straps as a "belt" through the back three belt loops while the jeans top was still a tube and easier to handle.

To make the pouch hold more cargo but not stick out so much at the sides, we put small pleats on each side of the fly in front, and on the outer side of each pocket on the back side. We used the blue masking tape to secure the pleats and the front pockets during sewing. The bottom seam was sewn twice along the brown line. We then trimmed to a half-inch seam allowance (trimming off the bottoms of the front pockets) and zigzagged the seam edge.


Results

Here is the finished fanny pack. My daughter did all but the trickiest sewing, and this project certainly has helped improve her machine sewing skills. She also made a lanyard decoration for the back (and learned a new completion stitch from the Boondoggle Man).


The backpack straps are sewn together in the middle of the back, and the whole strap is sewn down. The front of the pack is meant to go against the body so doesn't have the strap.


The following shot shows the zipper opening:


Because we used adult womens' jeans, this fanny pack has some serious book capacity! I could easily get five paperbacks in it. Of course, it also has five functional jeans pockets.


"Honey, does this make my butt look big?"


Yeah, you don't even need to answer that question! Next time I'll have to make one of these out of a little black dress instead of some big baggy jeans! Or maybe bustles will come back in style...