It's fun to swing outside when the sun shines, but it is too bad that there's no swing everywhere. What if we could swing everywhere we want? Wouldn't that be nice: walking, see a nice tree, take your swing out, put it in the tree, sit and swing, and when you want to walk further you just have to take the wing out the tree and put back it in your backpack?

I made a swing that you can easily put in and out your backpack. It's easy to put in a tree, with some practice it goes really fast. If the ropes are to long you can make them shorter. And the funny part is that your backpack doesn't lay on the ground but you're as a matter of fact swinging on it, that's why it's called a 'Backpack swing'.

It's easy to make it all by yourself and you will have much enjoy of it later. So lets do itP!

Step 1: Required Materials

- 20m polypropylene rope (10mm diameter, and in my case a blue one),

- 16 metal rings (outside diameter 5cm, inside diameter 4cm),

- 7m canvas ribbon (I used a jute varaint, 5,5cm wide)

- 4 little and 3 heavy carabiners/snap hooks,

- Duct tape,

- Extra strong thread (spun polyester),

- needle(s) (i broke a few),

- a lighter.

Step 2: Making the Ropes of the Swing

We need the 20 meter long blue rope, 8 metal rings, duct tape, lighter, strong thread and a needle We cut 2x 60cm, these will form 2 loops that will connect the rope around the branch to the swing itself.

Split the rest of the rope in 2 parts, these are the ropes that goes around the branch.

Photo 2: fold 10cm each end of a rope. In the loop will come 1 metal ring.

Photo 3: ravel out until the place where the ring have to come.

Photo 4: now the ring is in the rope, sew the rope back together. This can be hard to do, be careful it's easy to break the needle.

Photo 5: finished with sewing.

Photo 6: put some duct tape around the sewing part so it is firmer and more beautiful.

Photo 7: melt the end of the rope, than it will not unravel.

Photo 9: a blue loop half finished.

Photo 10: a blue loop finished.

Step 3: Loops to Connect on the Wing

Photo 1: required: canvas ribbon, scissor, thread and needle, and some head pins.

Photo 2: cut 4 pieces of 20cm.

Photo 3 &4: Pin with some head pins one stroke double.

Photo 5: you don't have to sew perfect, because it won't make it stronger.

Step 4: Swing (or the Construction Around the Pack)

There's still 6,20meter left of the ribbon, this will form the construction around your back. It is the intention that you can regulate the construction so that you can use it on every backpack that you have.

We need the rest (8pc) of the metal rings, the rest of the ribbon, head pins, thread and needle.

Photo 1: a draw of the backpack swing. My backpack is not small, so I made it at least a surround of minimum 150cm. And I toke an extra 30cm to finish it properly. You can chose how large the surround will be, if you chose for a large surround you can it also later use for smaller backpacks. On the draw you see also two smaller straps and a longer one (in my case 2x 80cm and 1x 1meter, here you can chose again how large you want to make it). The under straps need do be cut in two for the regulate system.

Photo 2 till 4: making the regulate system. Take two rings and a ribbon end. Go with the ribbon trough both rings. Secure the end with the ribbon with thread and needle. Go with a second end of ribbon trough both rings. Go back with the end but only trough the first ring you went trough.

Photo 5: the finished surround for the backpack. (without the straps under neath)

Photo 6&7: tie up the straps on the surround (that we just made). Sew it properly. You can do it with your hands or with a machine.

Photo 8 till 10: connect the 4 loops, we made at step 2, on the surround. Two on each side where the largest strap underneath is tied up. Before you fastened with thread and needle you have to make sure the loop goes trough the ring of the blue loop (look at step 1). On photo 10 you see how the loops are connected with the blue loop and the rope that goes around the branch of the tree.

photo 11: end result of this step.

Step 5: How to Make the Rope Shorter or Longer?

To make the rope shorter we need only 2 little snap hooks. The rope is made of 3 independent ropes that are whirl together to make one rope.

Hold the rope on the place where you wanna make it shorter. Twist the rope on that place so that you have split the rope again back in 3 independent ropes. Take the snap hook and click it around 1 or 2 splited ropes. Let the rope loose, it will go back to it's normal form (the three back together) but now there's a snap hook between them.

Now before you are going to click one ring of the rope around the branch in the snap hook, you have to go with the rope trough the snap hook of the blue loop and click it in the snap hook thats in the rope. i you don't go first trough the snap hook of the blue loop, you will the rope make it longer, what a solution is if the tree is to high.