Elevenses Backpack: Sunburst Patchwork Tutorial

I loved the sun quilting motif on the Elevenses Backpack and wanted to echo it on the front pocket with some colorful piecing- almost like the reflection of a sunset on water. This ended up being straight-forward to do especially since half the Front Pocket can fit on a single page of paper so I could easily photocopy it. Plus, all the lines are already there which makes it easy.

I’m going to take you through the steps to piece your pocket panel which will give the illusion of your upper bag reflecting on to the pocket and it’s going to be super fun!

First off, you may need access to a printer of some sort (home or copy shop) or you will need some paper to do a bit of tracing. All in all, I only needed to make two standard copies on my home printer. This is in addition to the pattern piece that you will need for other elements of the pocket. So, keep that pattern intact!

Ready, set, design!

You will need:

1. The Elevenses Backpack sewing pattern. Specifically, in this tutorial, we will be working with the Front Pocket pattern piece.
2. Fabrics to make your pieced pocket.
3. Printing capability unless you’d like to trace.
4. Paper, ruler, pencil, scissors and your vision.
5. Interfacing the pieces is optional.

You’ll still need to cut the Front Pocket pattern in Batting, Backing and Lining. But we’ll be replacing the Contrast Fabric with our pieced pocket.

We’re only going to use one half of the pocket to make our pieces. This is where the printing or tracing will come in. But we’re going to label our pieces and outline them before copying since we’re simplifying the design a little. This way we don’t have to label every page after it’s printed, and we’ll cut down on potential mistakes.

It is optional to add the quilting allowance provided around the perimeter of the pattern piece. It will not be shown in the remaining images. My pieces were still the right size once pieced and quilted with all layers-but it wouldn’t hurt to add that 1” (2.5 cm) perimeter buffer.

Making the Design

For my pieced pocket, I combined two sunshine Ray sections for each Ray that you see. I didn’t want to make it overly complicated! Therefore, each color is two Rays.

Note: When I quilted the upper bag, I only quilted every other line so it would match the spacing on the pieced pocket.

Label and identify your pieces on one half of your pocket (I’ll be working on the right half as we’re looking at the pocket):

• I combined my Rays from top to center drawing a heavier line between each pair, so they are visually distinct. I labeled them 1-5. Each of the Rays will need to be cut twice (a left and a right). You can see each Ray, 1-5, is mirrored on the Left side of the pocket. This is important to note since they are a mirror image.
• I labeled the curved Sun sections A, B, and C. These will be cut on the fold and only one of each will be needed.
• You don’t have to combine Rays if you’d like more Rays of sunshine! And you can also combine them differently. It can be helpful make a left and right pattern piece to ensure they’re cut properly.
• From here on out, I’ll refer to the lines we just drew to divide up the Rays as the Ray edges.

It’s easy to get confused later with all these sun Rays! So be consistent. Notice I wrote the numbers on the left half too- this is helpful so you can plan your colors and know which pattern piece will be cut in each fabric.

Start thinking about your color layout and design. You can use the whole pattern piece to come up with your layout. You can see in mine that I didn’t mirror the colors, they repeat. I used four different colors for the Rays and three of those colors were used for the Sun sections.

Selecting fabrics can be overwhelming for a non-quilter like me! I can end up spending days agonizing over something like this. My tip, go with your first instinct! Make a layout, walk away, and get your first impression when you see it next time. I promise you; it will look great and you may not remember the other layouts!

TIP: It’s useful to have some scraps of your fabric taped to each section so you can remember your layout and see it easily! Especially if one fabric is being used for more than one piece.

Lastly, there are two ways to go about the grainline on these pieces. You can use the existing grainline (See in the image how I line up the ruler to the existing grainline to draw it on pieces 1 and 2). This method helps keep directional prints upright.

The other method draws the grainline down the middle of each piece so that the Ray is on grain from sun end to the outer end. You can use the dashed line leftover from combining the Rays in pairs for your grainline. This latter method will make the Rays more stable to sew together since fewer of these seams will be on the bias.

Either method works great.

Making the Pieces

We’re ready to make our pattern pieces! Take your labeled pocket half and carefully photocopy it at least two times. If you like, you can photocopy an additional copy, but it is only needed for one section of the Sun. But it can give you some spare pieces to make Lefts and Rights if you want.

• On one of your copies, you’ll be using A, 2 and 4
• On the other you’ll be using B, 1, 3, 5.
• On the third copy, you’ll only need section C (If you didn’t print out a third copy, you can trace this section from one of your other copies or your pattern).

Add Seam Allowances

The Elevenses Backpack has ½” (1.3 cm) seam allowance. On these pieces for the pocket, I recommend something smaller such as ¼” (6 mm). It’s much easier to sew curves and small seams with a smaller seam allowance. There is already seam allowance around the perimeter of the pocket and your sun sections are on the fold! You will only need to add it every place we have added a seam- don’t forget the center line along piece 5-that one is sneaky! And the center line on the Sun pieces is on the fold.

In this diagram, each edge is color-coded showing seam allowances and fold line.

Here are all the pieces with their seam allowances drawn in a dark pink parallel to our original design cut line. Notice I have drawn an X on the pieces I didn’t plan on using so I could keep track of which piece I was adding seam allowance to.

I traced section C from my pattern piece. Next, we can cut apart all our pieces. I love using a ruler with grid lines on it so I can line it up to the straight edges and draw a nice parallel line for the seam allowance.

Double check: 

• There are 8 total pattern pieces. 
• The Sun Sections are on the fold and have seam allowances drawn in along both curved edges. 
• All the Rays have seam allowances drawn in along the Ray edges of each side of the piece and along the curved edge at the top- don’t forget that! 

You’re now ready to cut out your pieces in fabric!

Here are my cut pieces ready to sew! You can interface your pieces, however the Front Pocket also gets batting and backing and quilting which will add a lot of body. I like to lay these pieces on a piece of cardboard or small cutting mat to keep them in the layout and carry over to the sewing machine.

Sewing

1. The first step is to sew the Rays together.

Sew each Ray to the next using your chosen seam allowance. In my opinion, it’s easiest to line your Rays up at the curved Sun end and sew outward. This is great practice lining up seam allowances. You can see how there are those little seam allowance ‘wings’ that poke out when you have the seamline accurate on some angled seams. Press all seams open.

2. Next, we’ll sew the Sun Sections together.

In my opinion, this will be the trickiest step. Sewing curves can be challenging. I suggest adding a notch along each curved edge where the center (fold) is. This will help you stay on track. If you need to draw in your seam allowances on the wrong side, go for it!

My best tip, and you might find this isn’t as appealing, skip the pins! I like to sew with the piece that has the outward (convex) curve on the bottom with the piece that has the inward curve (concave) face down on top (right sides together). The top piece is the one I would draw the seam allowance on to on the wrong side. I line it up for just a few stitches at a time, adjust, sew a few stitches, adjust.

Without pins, it’s a lot easier to adjust as you ooch along the curve. When you get to the midway point, you can take a little breather, pat yourself on the back, steel yourself for the second half. You got this! You only have to do it three times!

Press the seams of the Sun sections up.

3. Lastly, we’ll sew the Sun to its Rays.

Draw the seam allowance on the wrong side of the Ray section along the curved edge and put it face down on top of the Sun sections. In included this picture to reiterate how tricky it is to get started on those curved seams! You can see the pieces are to the side of each other, but for those first few stitches, I have it lined up flush at the top. Then I’ll pull the top layer around the outward curve of the Sun section, a few stitches at a time, resting at the half way point. Press this last seam up.

Great job! Now you can take your Front Pocket and carry on with the instructions at step 4a iii by quilting your Sun Panel to the Batting and Backing (remember, your Sun panel replaces the Contrast Panel or Sawtooth Star Panel).

More resources and ideas

Here on the blog, Meredith has a fun post showing two other patchwork possibilities for your Elevenses Backpack pocket.

And, if you want to get deeper into quilting and patchwork opportunities – plus an extremely thorough walk-through of ALL the skills required to sew your own backpack – you should probably check out our new Learn to Sew a Backpack course. Happy patchworking!