One of the reasons we bought our house (an it was the only one we looked at!) was because it is right next to a conservation site, which is home to a river, marsh and woods. The distance is so close that our tot has been able to walk there (without buggy or carrier) for nearly a year. The woods is small and impossible to get lost in, yet it's quite disorientating so it feels a lot bigger. There are HUGE cedar trees in one area but the rest is of native species of trees like oak, beech and hazel.

We are so happy to find an amazing array of spring flowers there today, and we took a small picnic with us, hot chocolate, gingerbread biscuits and a banana.

(this is the old disused railway track that joins one town to the other, the woods is just off this track)

I'd heard about the bluebells, but no one mentioned the mass of wild orchids in flower!

and teeny weeny violets.

...and the odd 'white' bell amongst the blue.

Our littlun seems to love her new rucksack, she filled it full of toys and carried that heavy load with her all the way.

It really is amazing that you can reach this place in just 10 minutes walk from the ferry, so if you don't have a car, it's a nice place to come if you want a break from the city ; )

She knows these paths like the back of her hand, and always stops to check if the eels have come back, or if there are any baby fish in the mill stream. I suppose she won't remember anything of her life in London where she lived until one year old. Our tiny flat and the neighbours upstairs, the crowded park and the noisy buses. She does love going to London though, but I can't imagine she'd want to live there...not right now anyway.

So because my littlun burst into my shed when I was making a rucksack as pressie for another kiddo, she obviously wanted one too...so feeling a tad bad, I promised her I would, and let her chose the fabric (from my collection that I chose, so not strictly speaking her choice ha ha!). She quickly went through each fabric with an abrupt 'no' 'no 'no' until she landed on this one and the one with raindrops on, then she said in a very matter of fact way 'this one, the polar bear one'.

I made a straight forward style rucksack because I fancied the challenge. It was not easy, but it is to do with the bulk fabric feeding through the machine rather than the design which is quite basic to work out. I added padding on the back and straps, and a large handle at the top to make it easy for her to hook onto a door knob or coat hook (and useful to grab hold of her if she bolts off in the wrong direction!). I used a soft grey needlecord on the back (same as the last one) and a dark blue/grey felt on the front for the pocket. It is lined in thick calico (also like the other one).

(this little white bear peeping out of the seams was a happy accident, as the littlun finds it hilarious!)

I'm quite please with how it turned out, as I had quite a few issues with it, but with a some deep breaths and cups of tea, I managed to resolve them instead of giving up on it, so I have a bit of a sense of achievement in this little bag! It is quite wonky if you look at it closely, but I have come to learn that, you need to accept some faults or you will never end up finishing anything.

It also turned out that she loves it! and as soon as she put it on, said "I want to go to school Mum, I'm going to get older and go to school Mum" (not just yet, pleeeeeease!!)

She stuffed it full of random toys and empty play doh tubs (?)

...and we planned an adventure for the day with our rucksacks on our backs!

p.s. the blog post after this one, is what we did on that adventure!

I made a rucksack! It's not for me but another little person in the family, who had a birthday recently. 

I got the idea for the design from a bag I already had as it looked quite simple to make, but,  it was not simple to make! It was just pretty difficult to get some bulk fabric through the machine and it is quite a complicated task to work out how to construct it so that hardly any stitches can be seen on the outside, it's a bit like rubix cube. 

Any how, I'm fairly pleased with the result, it is pretty sturdy and will do the job well enough I think. The only real mistake I made was that I put the straps too far apart at the top for a small person so it better suits an older girl. The recipient is three, oops. At least she won't grow out of it for a while ; ) I added a small detachable clip to the straps to make it fit better but I have yet to test it out on a toddler. 

I doubled up the fabric by using thick canvas for the lining and corduroy with wadding for the back panel to give it some oomph. I bought the webbing, buckles and adjusters from a supplier on Ebay quite cheaply.

I used these magnetic fasteners, I backed them on the inside with a bit of thick wool felt to reinforce the fabric. The straps are padded with polyester wadding

...and I bound the inside seems with the stripey bias binding.

I really enjoyed this project and working in my shed on a sunny afternoon...I had some visits from my nipper to see what I was up to...needless to say I have now been commissioned to make one for her too (she has already chosen the fabric for her's). By the way, the fabric I used is 100% organic cotton by Birch fabrics and unbleached cotton calico from my local haberdashers.

I hope that she can take it on her future outdoor adventures, being a country girl, I'm sure there will be many! I put some things inside too...a story about camping (Orlando the cat if you know it?), a lantern and a little toy wolf (camping buddy!).