A long while ago, I blogged about one of my favorite patterns--the Rucksack from Bethany Reynolds. Bethany is also the originator of Stack-n-Whack quilts. I've made one of the Stack-n-Whack quilts from her first book (it's pieced but not yet quilted) and have the main fabric for one for my sister, because she covets mine but it is in a totally different color palette than her home. I'm hoping to dive into her quilt this week while I'm playing nursemaid to my mom. I'm also hoping to share both quilts in a future blog post, since I can't seem to find a previous blog post where I've talked about this project. (Fellow bloggers--don't you hate it when you can't find the post that mentions something you're sure you blogged about once before!?)

But back to the Rucksack. I love this pattern! It's great if you're a quilter or a lover of fabric, as it's easy to combine several fabrics in this project, and many of them are smaller cuts like fat quarters. Plus, the width of the front three pockets is adjustable, so I was able to make one of the pockets the perfect width to hold my sunglasses case.

As for the fabric choices. On a challenging day a while back, I ran over to a quilt shop that's very close to my office on my lunch hour and I found the fabric I used for my rucksack (mine's the bottom one in the photo). When my sister saw it, she insisted that she needed one too. Since I'm such a people-pleaser, I asked her to give me some color guidance. Then I went through my fabric stash and let her pick pieces that I thought would suit what she wanted. She was thrilled with the final result--beachy, tropical, and ready for summer.

You may wonder why I'm blogging about this now. I had stopped carrying my backpack for a while, and the other day I laundered it and was reminded just how much I love it. It's a great size, the colors and prints express my personality, and, as I said in my original post, I made a third version of this, the smaller version, for my nephew when he was very young. I'm sure I have a photo of that somewhere--if I run across it, I'll share it here.

How about you. Do you have a favorite project, one that has triggered the "Oh, can you make me one?" reaction from friends and family? Tell me about it, link to it if you've got an image posted, or find some other way to share it with me.