[HN Gopher] Learn to sew your own outdoor gear
___________________________________________________________________
Learn to sew your own outdoor gear
Author : almog
Score : 485 points
Date : 2022-08-18 11:05 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (learnmyog.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (learnmyog.com)
| aasasd wrote:
| I went hiking a couple times with, among others, a dude who's
| been in climbing and mountaineering since the eighties at least,
| and was like sixty at the time. This is in Russia, so in the
| eighties you just couldn't buy anything in the shops, and only
| _something_ via the black market. At a train platform, we met
| another guy like that, and it was battle story time: that guy
| showed us a backpack hand-made from tarpaulin, which is of course
| a bit of the opposite of light hiking. Our guy related the story
| of his climbing rope, to obtain which you had to go through a
| hole in the fence of a factory, then walk on the roof to a
| certain door, knock and say 'I 'm here to see Mikhail, about this
| thing and that other thing'.
|
| Meanwhile here I am trying to gather courage to hand-fix holes in
| the accumulated twenty pairs of socks, and then graduate to the
| more involved things. Bit of a nuisance that every Youtube video
| on how to fix this kind of holes just says that darning is the
| answer. Come on, I know how darning is gonna turn out with my
| skills--surely there's a crappier but simpler alternative.
| robocat wrote:
| Extreme darning: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zHbnCrIvw1o
| (Invisible mending of warp/weft fabrics).
| exolymph wrote:
| Darning is actually very easy, give it a go on your least
| favorite pair! You could also patch socks but I don't think
| they'd be comfortable afterward.
| dvzk wrote:
| I ended up hand sewing several patches onto my synthetic $100
| MTB shorts just last week. No guides, and the process was
| excruciatingly long, but it turned out fine. Give it a shot! I
| gained a newfound respect for sewing.
| 99_00 wrote:
| >I know how darning is gonna turn out with my skills
|
| It's going to suck super bad, and you are going to be super
| slow. And after a couple of socks it will be easy. The learning
| curve is a speed bump. Easy to get over when you move forward.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| This is a great little device for repair of backpacks, heavy duty
| cordura materials, etc. It's not really suitable for making
| anything from scratch, but for those without sewing machines it's
| far superior to just needle and thread.
|
| https://www.speedystitcher.com/products
| swah wrote:
| Looks like a wonderful hobby, I'd love to be able to sew my own
| stuff.
| whartung wrote:
| It looks fun, this stuff has interested me for a long time.
|
| My problem is that, simply, once you make your bag...then what?
|
| I have casual interest in a lot of "make-y" stuff, but reality
| then clouds up the sun.
|
| Sure, it would be neat to make, say, cabinets. But how many
| cabinets can I actually use? And tooling up to make a rolling
| cabinet with some drawers, that is a SINGLE cabinet, it all
| starts to get quite excessive.
|
| Some places have things like carpentry clubs, etc., but they're
| fraught with liability issues. I don't know of a sewing club
| that would have a machine strong enough to sew a cordura bag
| that one can borrow.
|
| Simply, the barrier to entry for a utility piece of kit is
| quite high. I don't think my friends want a bunch cabinets, or
| backpacks, or leather wallets, turned pens, etc. for Christmas
| gifts the next 10 years.
|
| Indeed you have to enjoy the journey and the doing more so than
| the outcomes, but, even still, it's definitely a step up to get
| going.
|
| At least with my computer musings, the garage and land fill
| doesn't fill up with borderline and failed attempts, or even
| the successes. Visions of Mel Gibson tossing his broken rocking
| chair into the corner of other failed rocking chairs in the
| movie 'The Patriot'.
| [deleted]
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| I got into leatherwork as a covid hobby. All hand tools, most
| of which are cheap. I store everything except the material
| and a ruler in a single organizer box.
|
| To get rid of the stuff I make, I just give it to other
| people. Usually it helps if they're things people actually
| ask for, like custom purses, bags, and cute dinosaur figures.
| I only produce a few items a year so no one's getting
| overwhelmed with stuff. As for waste, you just minimize it
| and learn how to fix, undo, or hide your mistakes.
| wnolens wrote:
| It really is. Sometimes it's useful like 3d-printing (make
| custom thing), but often it's just like having the right
| replacement part for something that broke. Here's some real
| examples from myself:
|
| Repairs (crotch of my jeans x 10, broken strap on backpack)
|
| Functional modifications (add pocket to jacket, add attachment
| points to a bag so I can mount it on my bike rack, lined a
| jacket with some scrap wool material to make it warmer)
|
| Aesthetic modifications - what got me into it in the first
| place (slim shirts, taper pants, hem pants, replace buttons)
|
| Small custom makes - mostly leather (my wallet, passport
| holder, kindle slip cover, tote bag)
|
| Large (involved) custom makes - bicycle frame bag, hammock
| underquilt
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| I guess this is a good place to share my open source large format
| laser cutter design for sewing projects. It's cheap to make,
| works pretty well, and the whole gantry assembly slides right off
| leaving just a sheet of plywood with low profile 3D printed rails
| on the sides. So I throw my rug over it and it becomes my floor
| when not in use. Important because the laser cutter can cut a
| full 60" wide piece of fabric two yards long. It's basically 5
| foot by 6 foot, and I don't have space in my apartment for a
| dedicated machine that takes up all that space. But since this
| doubles as my floor it works great! Also includes a raspberry pi
| camera on the laser head which serves as a pattern scanner. I
| really want to finish my video on this thing, I've just been
| busy. But please take a look and considering building it! If you
| have any questions open a GitHub issue and I will do everything I
| can to help. I think it's a great starting point (designed in
| three weeks) and I'd LOVE for other people to reproduce it and
| extend the design! The machine has a few hiccups but I use it all
| the time for my sewing projects and it is SO nice to get all the
| cutting done repeatably and automatically. You can even scan
| existing clothes often without disassembly and turn those in to
| digital patterns!
|
| https://github.com/tlalexander/large_format_laser_cutter
| learnmyog wrote:
| hi this project sounds great! I've been wanting a large format
| plotter to help with designing and making patterns. I use a
| cricut today for small projects. Vinyl cutters are also an
| option but the cheap ones have terrible software. A combo pen
| plotter for 36" paper and a larger laser cutter for fabric
| sounds ideal if one has the space! I'll def read more about
| your project.
| comrh wrote:
| Awesome! Is there anything stopping using this for wood too?
| Any problems with vibrations messing with the cuts (like from
| walking around it)?
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| My floor is concrete so it doesn't vibrate. But I'd say this
| should work with wood just fine! I do use wood for the
| backing so you'd have to be mindful not to cut through that.
| 99_00 wrote:
| Thank you for sharing this. In terms of common garment fabrics,
| what kind of fabrics can't be laser cut.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| Thick white material is the toughest. Like thick white denim
| or canvas requires a very slow cutting speed. Polyester seems
| to emit some kind of harmful gasses. I always ventilate the
| room, wear an n95 mask, run a HEPA filter nearby, and sit
| outside during and shortly after cutting pretty much
| anything, but especially polyester. I can't really think of
| what would not be cut by the laser, but I don't know anything
| about what fumes may be more or less harmful.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Yeah, there's certain materials that the laser cutting
| community knows about that you just don't cut with a laser.
| One of the gasses produced is Hydrogen Cyanide Gas (HCN).
| PVC also produces nasty gas as well.
|
| Here's a more definitive list:
|
| https://laseruser.com/what-can-a-laser-cutter-cut/
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| Ah good, polyester is okay! I mean, definitely do not
| breathe whatever it's putting out. The first time I cut
| it I did not wear a mask and my throat was immediately
| very sore.
| semi-extrinsic wrote:
| I haven't done a lot of laser cutting, but I expect there
| will be a ranking that is basically this from best to worst:
|
| synthetic fibers > plant fibers > animal fibers
|
| I will also guess that more shiny is more bad.
|
| Edit: while on the topic of animal fibers, one fabric that
| gets way too little love in the outdoors community is wadmal.
| If you are doing anything that has intervals of high and low
| activity and you tend to sweat, it beats any GoreTex (incl.
| Pro versions) hands down for keeping you dry. Unless you are
| out in heavy rain for prolonged periods, in which case the
| only thing that keeps you dry is the thick PVC stuff that
| fishermen use.
| digdugdirk wrote:
| You. Are. My. Hero.
|
| This is one of those projects that's been itching away at the
| back of my mind, but always on the backburner. Having a
| starting point will be a great help getting things rolling.
|
| How much did it cost you, all in? And how do you find a laser
| for cutting some of the more technical fabrics? (Specifically
| thinking of some of the ultralightweight fabrics the MYOG
| community loves to nerd out on.)
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| Wonderful!
|
| I disassembled an old 3D printer for the stepper motors and
| control board. But I would say it probably costs in the
| neighborhood of $300-$350 to build from scratch. I spent
| under $200 since I had a lot of parts already.
|
| I've not tried cutting those technical fabrics! I would
| suspect it works fine. I am mostly making street clothing
| with it. I've cut some medium weight polyester with no
| problem, but haven't tried super light stuff. The laser power
| is adjustable so I suspect it will work fine.
|
| Also I have a full config file for the 3d printer control
| board. If you get the thing built PLEASE ask me for that in a
| github issue as I do really need to add it to this repo.
| DMell wrote:
| This is absolutely amazing. As someone that spends ungodly
| amounts of money on outdoor gear, I'll be digging into this
| tonight after work.
|
| Thank you!
| nullwarp wrote:
| Oh this is incredible! As someone who absolutely hates the
| cutting part of sewing I'll be adding this to the top of my to
| do list!!
| tppiotrowski wrote:
| This is great. I think the $20 ask for the shorts pattern is a
| bit high since already made shorts can be bought for twice that.
| I wish the patterns were free and all revenue could come from
| affiliate marketing commissions from the fabric/materials
| suppliers.
| slingnow wrote:
| I hope you realize the pattern doesn't self-destruct after you
| complete one pair of shorts with it.
| bennylope wrote:
| The patterns aren't licensed for a single pair of shorts.
| justusthane wrote:
| $20 is a pretty typical price for sewing patterns. They're a
| lot of work to create, and you can use them as many times as
| you want.
| blip54321 wrote:
| For me, it's not so much about price but about freedom. I'd
| like to be able to modify them, create derivative works, and
| otherwise.
|
| I'd also like others to be able to do the same, so I can get
| their modified versions. Usually, someone else will solve my
| problem.
|
| I don't mind $20, but I do mind needing to pay $20. There are
| lots of companies who make great patterns. I'm not sure what
| makes this any different.
| [deleted]
| savingGrace wrote:
| I've always wanted to get into sewing my own clothes, but the
| fact that fabric is very expensive has always kept me out of it.
| It is a lot cheaper to buy pre-made clothing than to make your
| own. Even if you buy existing fabric from 2nd hand stores and
| turn it into your own project, it still can be cheaper to just
| buy pre-made clothing.
| byw wrote:
| Also I think many tech fabrics like Gore-Tex aren't sold to
| individuals.
| learnmyog wrote:
| hi there, LearnMYOG.com is my site. I saw a bump in traffic and
| was shocked to see HN! Thanks for the share and for everyone
| visiting my little corner of the internet. Happy to talk more
| about making gear or related projects :)
| chrisseaton wrote:
| In the British Army every subunit is entitled to train someone in
| sewing and using sewing machines so that they can repair the
| subunit's clothes and webbing equipment, including in the field.
| It's a very creative course and people come back able to build
| you all kinds of rigs and pouches and things like this from
| webbing and Cordura that are extremely robust. The soldiers are
| all super keen to get on the course and to learn to sew.
| musingsole wrote:
| Sewing was a skill I picked up in a Home Economics course I
| filled an empty middle school schedule slot with.
|
| Next to programming, it's probably one of the most helpful
| things I learned in school.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| Edit: I just remembered something more HN relevant. At one of
| the London hackspaces there was a machine, maybe a Roland
| IIRC, that you could program to do really intricate
| embroidery. TBH it looked like a real hassle to set the thing
| up with different bobbins of thread and whatnot.
|
| "Home Economics", was a thing at my school too, then we did
| sewing again in scouts and cadets, as the GP says make-and-
| mend is considered an essential survival skill. Thing is, I'm
| rubbish at it and usually stab my finger with a needle, but
| to this day I still pack a mini sew-kit wherever I travel.
| ghaff wrote:
| >I'm rubbish at it and usually stab my finger with a
| needle, but to this day I still pack a mini sew-kit
| wherever I travel
|
| Even if I'm rubbish at it and take forever to thread a
| needle, I've still made field repairs to gear while
| traveling that were a lot better than having no repair at
| all.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I filled that hole in my schedule with a typing class.
|
| My mom taught me the stuff kids were learning in HomeEc
| classes.
| earleybird wrote:
| Thanks for the reminder.
|
| I remember my mum saying "if you're going to program you
| better learn to type" - that was when I was going into gr
| 10. I didn't always follow her advice but I did take the
| typing class.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I learned how to type by playing online multiplayer games
| in before teamspeak or whatever they use now became a
| thing. Although it was still quicker to type to
| communicate even after teamspeak.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Mavis Beacon FTW!!!
|
| They typing class I took was a proper typing class
| though, so much more learning than just where the keys
| are located. Old Skool stuff too like double spaces at
| the end of sentence puntucation. How to set up tabs. How
| to format letters. Just to completely date myself, I was
| taught PASCAL!
| nicbou wrote:
| It was unfortunately way too early for us. We were 11. I
| forgot everything long before the necessity of it became
| obvious.
| bbarnett wrote:
| Canadian here.
|
| My grandmother was a girl during WWI, just married before WWII
| (with my grandfather going to fight in 39), and of course she
| saw Korea, Vietnam, the cold war, etc.
|
| When I was young, maybe 4, I remeber her teaching me to sew. It
| is one of my earliest memories of her, along with her saying
| "hay is for horses!", every time I said "hey grandma" to her.
|
| I recall asking her why, and she became very soleoum, and said
| that I had to learn how to fix my own socks, that no one would
| do it for me, in a trench, during a war.
|
| Can't say I blame her thinking, with it being the height of the
| cold war, the Cuban missile crisis just over, and her whole
| life and mind filled with the knowledge war.
|
| Yes, soldiers need to know how to sew.
| gonzo41 wrote:
| I still have my sew awl I bought for fixing gear out field.
| It's a very useful skill.
| 0000011111 wrote:
| This is such a fun hobby worth sharing!
| ankaAr wrote:
| Years ago I dated a fashion designer student, I ever wonder why
| there is no a git* with those patterns to share.
| franga2000 wrote:
| Didn't expect to see sewing patterns on HN, but not complaining,
| this looks really cool!
|
| While on the topic, my girlfriend recently showed me this site:
| https://freesewing.org . It's fully open source and all the
| patterns are actually parametric, meaning you can customize the
| patterns to exact body measurements. Their custom JS framework
| for designing patters as well as the rest of the platform is MIT
| licensed [0] and the patterns are all Creative Commons.
|
| [0] https://github.com/freesewing/
| ArekDymalski wrote:
| >Didn't expect to see sewing patterns on HN, but not
| complaining, this looks really cool!
|
| Yeah, this page is great example for all those people who
| despise the role of marketing. The wording, info structure,
| photos a d so long are making it really appealing. Awesome
| execution.
| nicbou wrote:
| I found it a bit hard to understand what the website is
| about. The community is obviously proud of their approach,
| but it slightly overshadows the main purpose.
|
| Of course I'm just nitpicking, because I love everything
| about people who build such things. If you're working hard to
| be as nice as feasible, it's really hard not to advertise it.
| joostdecock wrote:
| Thank you for your input. One thing we struggle with is
| that people have become distrusting of things that are
| 'free' on the internet (for good reason.
|
| So if we're putting a lot of emphasis on how nice we try to
| play, that's because we have that initial distrust to
| overcome.
|
| Your criticism is valid, I'm merely trying to clarifying
| why we are putting the communal aspects front and center.
|
| If you have suggestions for how we could improve, please
| share them
|
| Joost -- FreeSewing maintainer
| narag wrote:
| I'm not familiar with relevant English vocabulary so I'm
| confused because authors' names mix with clothes names in
| the titles, not sure which is which. Also apparently
| nobody likes polo shirts.
| zucked wrote:
| It took me a few minutes to wrap my head around how the
| site works, but I am seriously impressed. It's intuitive
| and easy to grok.
|
| The illustrations are tops, too - love that aspect.
| joostdecock wrote:
| Did not expect to see sewing patterns here either, let alone
| have my side-project mentioned in the first comment.
|
| Thank you so much for the shout-out
|
| Joost - FreeSewing maintainer
| mittermayr wrote:
| Your hoodie is still the one thing I show people who are
| overly surprised when I tell them I picked up sewing a long
| while back and you can create proper clothes with it. Mine
| fits perfectly, looks like a "real" hoodie in and out and
| gets everyone very curious to try making one once they've
| seen the real thing. So, yeah, thanks for putting in the time
| to make that (and the videos for it).
| david_p wrote:
| Would you share the link to that particular hoodie pattern?
| I'm interested in trying to make it :)
| xelxebar wrote:
| Looks like this is the page of designs:
| https://freesewing.org/designs/ I see three different
| hoodies on there, with the Hugo looking most
| conventional.
| learnmyog wrote:
| Hi Joost, LearnMYOG is my site. Never imagined seeing HN
| community be interested :) FreeSewing.org is an amazing
| project and its really impressive how you're using javascript
| to create adaptable patterns. Many of my community have
| experimented with your patterns as well!
| fezfight wrote:
| Well thank you for making it! So much knowledge is kept being
| lock and key and here you are helping set it free. You're a
| good person
| Dave_Rosenthal wrote:
| I've been spending a lot of time outdoors lately (climbing,
| hiking, etc.) and started fooling around with making my own gear.
| I've always been interested in the engineering/design challenge
| of working with flexible materials. After buying a cheap sewing
| machine and making a simple pouch, I decided to start designing
| my own patterns as early as possible to maximize learning. i.e.
| learning to cook, not just following a recipe.
|
| I've made a couple of climbing packs specifically tailored to my
| size and requirements that have worked out great. (I've had
| multiple people ask me what brand it is and where could they
| could buy one!)
|
| What's been really cool is learning about all of the great
| materials available online now. If you were limited to your local
| fabric store you would be basically stuck as there is a horrible
| selection of technical fabrics. With places like Ripstop by the
| Roll you can have access to state-of-the-art fabrics, fittings,
| etc. that are as good at (or even better than) what you can find
| in high-end commercial gear.
|
| One example is UHMwPE fiber (aka Dyneema.) This fiber is
| dramatically stronger, lighter, and cut resistant than nylon. You
| can now get fabrics made from the stuff (Challenge Ultra) but the
| price means it's rarely seen in commercial designs. For me, if
| I'm going to spend several hours making a pack, the extra $30 in
| raw materials is irrelevant and you can get an awesome final
| result.
| Nomentatus wrote:
| Thread! Where do I get decent thread. Decades ago I had linen?
| button thread that would last in tough places, but now I can't
| find a substitute. Quilting thread doesn't last.
| goldscott wrote:
| Search for gutermann tera 80, mara 50, or mara 70.
| [deleted]
| TYPE_FASTER wrote:
| This is cool. Seeing as I can never get around to sending my ski
| jacket in for repair fast enough to get it done for the upcoming
| ski season, I might have to look into DIYing some repairs in the
| next month or two.
| andsoitis wrote:
| send it in today :-)
| intrepidhero wrote:
| The fabrics section is super interesting.
| https://learnmyog.com/fabrics.html
|
| The DWR coatings are something I'd like to be more informed
| about. Does anyone have good links to discussions of options with
| pros and cons, environmental impacts, etc?
| jsmith99 wrote:
| Many of these DWR are integrated into the fabric but Nikwax
| sell some good environmentally friendly wash-in DWR. They also
| have a well reputed waterproof clothing line called Paramo
| which uses these coatings along with some other tricks.
| intrepidhero wrote:
| Thanks for the tip! I'll check them out. I have an old
| backpack in need of a new DWR treatment, but with recent news
| about PFCs I was uncertain what to look for. It would sure be
| nice if the fabrics with integrated DWR were more upfront
| about what was in them.
| jointpdf wrote:
| Some more patterns and fabric/material sources to consider (no
| affiliation). Personally I got as far as making a bug headnet and
| stuff sacks before deciding I'm not cut out for this, but YMMV.
|
| http://thru-hiker.com/kits/
|
| https://www.thegreenpepper.com/
|
| https://ripstopbytheroll.com/
| neilv wrote:
| Very timely. Just a couple days ago, I was describing to someone
| that I wanted a smartphone holder for my backpack strap... that
| would not invite mugging by being prominent... while permitting
| the smartphone to function like a hands-free bodycam (whenever
| bad stuff started going down, er, on the mean streets of
| Cambridge).
|
| Now that I realize I can fabricate one-off outdoor gear, I don't
| have an excuse not to design this.
| subpixel wrote:
| request: how to make a great camping/beach cooler that doesn't
| cost $250
| gonzo41 wrote:
| At the supermarket ask someone in the produce section if they
| have any empty non broken broccoli shipping boxes. They are
| usually just thrown away and are polystyrene coolers.
|
| Or you know, just buy one, cry once and get a Yetti.
| username223 wrote:
| I want to like this, because lots of outdoor gear from reputable
| companies makes me wonder if they even test it, and markups are
| something like 4x (2x from China to wholesale, 2x wholesale to
| retail). But first you need to buy a sewing machine, and then
| there are the materials. You will be paying small-volume prices
| for a dozen or so items before you make something like a pack.
|
| Have you ever thought to build your own piece of furniture, gone
| to Home Depot for the parts, and come out thinking you could have
| just bought one pre-made for about the same cost? Unless you have
| specialized needs and some free time, it usually isn't worth it.
| UncleEntity wrote:
| Most hobbies are like this. I was doing silkscreening for a
| while and spent hundreds of dollars buying stuff when I could
| just go to the store and buy an already printed shirt for not a
| lot of money. Seriously doubt I've even come close to seeing a
| return on investment considering I haven't printed all that
| many T-shirts and discovered the online custom printing
| companies since then -- though I'm not very impressed with
| their quality since the printing is coming off after a handful
| of washes while with the ones I've done the printing is
| outlasting the actual shirt. I can only realistically do one
| color printing while the online ones can do whatever you want
| so there's a trade off I suppose.
|
| Also, I don't even know how much my mom spends on sewing stuff
| but judging by how much my stepdad complains I'm guessing quite
| a bit. But she enjoys it and that's all that really matters.
| jlack wrote:
| I've made his 'fastpack' a couple times and really like how it
| turned out! I will say, I found the written instructions
| difficult to follow(for me) and stuck pretty much exclusively to
| his videos that accompany the pattern which were much better.
| akavel wrote:
| Recently I was trying to buy a shoulder/messenger bag made from
| Cordura with molle/pals webbing, but was unable to find one with
| specific features and dimensions that I want. I'm thus
| increasingly pondering going on some sewing course. This makes me
| interested in the linked website in theory, but after a first
| glance, I seem to find it lacking in a number of ways:
|
| - For starters, the "zero to hero" path outlined does not seem to
| bring me all the way to customizing and then hopefully
| _designing_ my own gear (they don 't have a pattern for a
| messenger bag as far as I can see). I can see a set of pre-made
| designs that I would need to buy (at prices that seem steep to
| me, when compared to actual off-the-shelf non-DIY products), but
| I'm not sure what I'll learn from them and how far it will get me
| (even if I were ready to invest) if what I'm interested is doing
| what would be actually _my own_ gear (and not just reproductions
| of pre-made designs).
|
| - In the materials page I don't seem to see an entry for
| "Cordura", although I noticed they mentioned _using_ "Cordura" in
| at least one of the designs (a backpack). That seems internally
| inconsistent, and especially as someone who'd be learning from
| scratch, I know nothing at all, so need explanations for
| everything. This immediately makes me worried what other places
| in the website may have other knowledge holes I wouldn't be able
| to overcome. A forum/community could possibly help me ask around
| when I'm struggling, but I don't seem to see one mentioned.
|
| - I found a list of webbing methods, but molle/pals seems not
| there, which is surprising to me again.
|
| Not being from the US, does anyone know of an online
| resource/community where I could try and learn enough to design
| my own messenger bag with molle/pals webbing and sew it from
| Cordura?
| jibe wrote:
| Check out:
|
| https://www.bagbuff.com/
|
| And their Facebook group.
|
| It is oriented around starting beginners on making their own
| packs. They have a good shoulder bag pattern that would be a
| good place to start if your goal is a messenger bag.
| richiebful1 wrote:
| My recommendation for a beginner would be to buy a backpack you
| like and sew the webbing on. Get a bunch of nylon webbing and
| sew a bunch of bar tacks to create attachment points.
|
| Edit: I've done this by hand sewing hard points onto a canvas
| bag. Ymmv with a machine or other material
| almog wrote:
| I was humbled by just how complex sewing can be for me as
| someone who up until recently only experience with sewing was
| mending rips and buttons by hand. That is to say, I have a lot
| to learn when it comes to applying sewing technique to
| patterns, and while designing patterns might be somewhat
| orthogonal to that, I hope I'll get to do that as well, but
| you're right, this website, at least for now is not about
| designing your own patterns, but rather about making your own
| gear.
|
| I have zero experience in designing patterns, but as for the
| tools, I've heard great things about Valentina, an open source
| tool that has been also forked as Seamly2D (last time I checked
| Seamly2D seemed less maintained but that's all know).
|
| As to the cost, I just checked to make sure he didn't change
| that some* patterns are free. The newer ones have for a pretty
| typical price for sewing patters as far as I can tell.
|
| * The free patterns are for fanny pack, running belt, tote bag,
| stem bag as well as the stuff sacks and the zip pouch
| thinkmassive wrote:
| Cordura is a trademark name for a family of fabrics.
|
| This site has an entire page on technical fabrics, which
| explains their properties with sufficient detail to continue
| more in depth research elsewhere if needed.
|
| If you can't determine how the Cordura you have in mind is
| different from the described samples, how do you know it's the
| best fabric for your bag?
| akavel wrote:
| Please note I mentioned I'm a _complete beginner_ , so I
| don't know how fabrics differ and in particular what does
| Cordura mean in detail. Thus that makes it something I would
| hope a page aimed at beginners would explain. Notably, a
| different website (https://pangolinswithpacks.com/the-
| definitive-guide-that-you...) linked from the r/myog wiki
| (https://old.reddit.com/r/myog/wiki/index) that I found in
| the meantime (thanks to comments from others here) does seem
| to wonderfully clear this out for me, and something like this
| is in fact what I would love to see on a beginner-friendly
| website. Until then, all I knew was that the stuff I bought
| in the past that was advertised as made from Cordura was
| super durable.
| thinkmassive wrote:
| Did you first try searching for Cordura to figure out what
| is? Typing that single word into any search engine should
| point you to Wikipedia within the first few results.
|
| Seems like you're imposing requirements fora solution
| without understanding the problem space.
|
| Your approach is like choosing a specific microcontroller
| you want to use before understanding embedded systems
| fundamentals. Or choosing a JS framework and being upset an
| "intro to frontend" tutorial isn't centered around that
| specific tool.
| akavel wrote:
| I read the Wikipedia page for Cordura before, and re-
| reading it now I still find it opaque and not helping me
| understand what it actually is, or how it differs from
| non-Cordura. Whereas the page I linked above definitely
| helps me more.
|
| Notably, I can totally understand a person that knows
| absolutely nothing about programming could come to me
| with a question of: "How do I create a website from
| scratch that would use React?" I would _not_ start by
| answering them with: "Did you even try googling up what
| React is?", because I'm quite sure they wouldn't
| understand the explanation as presented on the internet.
| I would love to instead explain why they don't need to
| worry about React yet, and to show them a quick outline
| of a progression to get there, respecting that the
| decision to chose React or not is theirs in the end. And
| also tell them of some alternatives that they might want
| to explore instead of React at some point, and why.
| thinkmassive wrote:
| There's a big difference between an _interactive
| conversation_ and a tutorial...
|
| Keeping with your example, would also mention every other
| JS framework that exists? Because that's a futile effort
| that will always be outdated.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Cordura is really hard to sew with (it can break a lower-end
| machine), and also surprisingly expensive even as plain cloth,
| so I wouldn't normally recommend it to beginners, which is what
| this site is about.
| akavel wrote:
| Good to know, thanks! Then that's something I'd definitely
| love to see explained on the website :) ideally with a
| clarification how to progress into it at some point. That
| said, the machine I bought a while ago is a vintage
| mechanical one, so presumably tough. Also, per @almog's
| sibling post, I just found
| https://old.reddit.com/r/myog/wiki/index which may be a good
| starting point & community for me to explore.
| daveslash wrote:
| " _Learn this one great trick the fashion industry doesn 't want
| you to know!_" ~ Turns out it's just sewing.
|
| Jokes aside, this is great. I've made some of my own stuff. It's
| really liberating to make equipment that is _exactly_ what _you_
| want. A backpacking buddy made an entire internal-frame backpack.
| I hope to work up to that level with time!
| 13of40 wrote:
| I have some in-laws who were avid hikers in the USSR at a time
| when it was nearly impossible to get off the shelf gear. They
| showed me some of the stuff they'd made by hand, including a
| backpack with an aluminum frame and cloth salvaged from an old
| parachute, and an inflatable boat they used to go camping in
| inaccessible areas. Both of them were indistinguishable from
| what you would get from a factory.
| tlear wrote:
| Because a lot of that was done in the factory meaning there
| was a cottage industry for a lot of it. Done in a normal
| factory and then sold on the side. Your salary was say $100 a
| month no matter what you did, you could make things on state
| time and then sell it and make double that(and still collect
| the salary). Same reason why vegetables bought from private
| peasant plots were amazing and kolkhoz stuff you bought in
| store was shit(when it was there at all lol).
|
| Of course you had to pay some kick back to a manager or more
| likely give him a case of samogon.
| 13of40 wrote:
| IIRC, the wife was a chemist, the husband was a
| physicist(?) and their kid is a Tolkein/D&D nerd who grew
| up and got a computer job. No factory involved. Before he
| passed away the husband showed me the arc welder he built
| and I got to tour his apartment in Moscow that he'd
| completely remodeled with cast away flooring and wall
| paneling from some pre-revolution building that was being
| torn down. He was basically just very "handy" and applied
| that skill to making camping gear sometimes.
| zeagle wrote:
| Bookmarked! That's great and something more folks should be aware
| of.
|
| I started making my own hiking gear years ago and it has been fun
| passion of mine. Cost aside, the biggest benefit is developing a
| comfort in modifying and fixing existing gear and eventually
| learning to make it look good. I started with the rayway quilt
| for a prairie wintercamping overbag but have since taken a UL DIY
| tarp tent + bug shelter, various quilts/bags, ponchos, gaiters,
| and various bags on longer back country trips. I've replaced a
| fly for an old but durable tent and adjusted the skin of a
| folding kayak (was not as happy with the cosmetic result on that
| one). It's a bit addictive. Zippers are hard to get right but
| once you've done this it's easy to go to scrubs or dresses. My
| latest purchase is a speedy stitcher awl for other projects.
|
| If you are into this the other big category to try out is DIY
| dehydrated meal prep. Last weeklong trip I intentionally
| overpacked food to share and split and everyone wanted some of my
| food after a couple days on that mountain house (relative) crap.
| It ends up being way cheaper, tastier, and probably healthier.
| Leading up to a trip I just cook extra and try to be more
| vegeterian for dinner. Those portions of rice, bean/lentil
| dishes, vegeterian curries all get thrown onto some parchment
| paper in a rack (previously spiral) dehydrator, ziplocked, and
| then frozen until the trip. Switch it up with different seasoning
| and sides, e.g. rehydrate a side of sauerkraut, pickled beets, or
| some jerkey. Just word to the wise chopped potatos rehydrate
| slowly & poorly: easier to buy those cartoons of shredded
| dehydrated potato from costco. I'll buy their cooked canned
| chicken to dehydrate too. Also dehydrated 1/2cm wide banana
| slices (no soaking/additives) are my favourite snack now.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| I mean sure, you can learn basically anything if you put enough
| effort into it. Had a friend who refused to let builders build
| their house and did it all basically himself, took him some 2-3
| years. Only hired aid when he needed more muscle than 1 person
| can muster (or to check if he did OK electricity and plumbing,
| but otherwise all by himself).
|
| Motivation was 2-fold - obviously save some money, but also to
| know how to repair stuff once things start degrading, and they
| for sure will, one after another.
|
| Sounds romantic and the right things, but as somebody who knows
| exactly what I want to do with my life and how to get there,
| its just another meh no thank you for me. One has limited free
| time in this life, the older usually the less, and I really
| don't mind shelling out few bucks to equipment from ie
| Decathlon (for US - good quality _and_ cheap outdoor stuff, you
| really don 't need overpriced Arc'teryx things) and spend free
| time actually using it out there. You only need few items to be
| proper high quality for not ruining the trip, ie shoes,
| backpack and maybe jacket for colder times. And of course
| technical stuff for ie climbing or alpinism but thats another
| topic.
|
| Saving tons of hours on frustration on understanding how things
| shouldn't be done. That is coming from person whose mom used
| sewing machine quite a lot, grandma was making various clothing
| for all their grandchildren etc.
|
| That food preparation part is actually more interesting since
| you control how much chemical crap goes into it (well,
| obviously apart from actual ingredients for it... but I presume
| since you invest so much time into this you go for ie free
| range bio meat and similar quality of the rest). But again - I
| can just pop extra dollar or two per dry meal for bio variant
| of prepared meals, they taste wonderfully after long hard day
| anyway, especially if one is properly hungry. Now if somebody
| would come up with dried usable beer that would be another
| story...
| ydant wrote:
| > Decathlon
|
| Interesting recommendation, I haven't heard of them. I
| checked out their MTB shorts, and this model[0] is basically
| identical to a pair I've bought on Amazon from various
| "Chinese" retailers of different names (like ARSUXEO), which
| gives me pause due to the massive inconsistency in quality
| from pair to pair.
|
| Do you know if Decathlon actually takes an active role in the
| production, or are they just buying bulk e.g. from Alibaba?
| Their website doesn't really say much and what they do say
| just feels kind of generic.
|
| [0] https://www.decathlon.com/products/mountain-bike-
| shorts-900-...
| jakub_g wrote:
| Decathlon is a French company, they are huge in France and
| many EU countries (basically the first brick-and-mortar go-
| to place to buy any sporting equipment if you're on budget,
| or just need to buy many sporting gear in one place), and
| the quality of everything they sell if remarkably high,
| given the low prices compared to the brand names, across
| all kinds of products.
|
| If someone is copying someone else, it's those Chinese
| companies copying Decathlon IMO.
| therealdrag0 wrote:
| Would it be accurate to say Decathlon is the French
| version of Columbia? Seems like a similar price point at
| least.
|
| I got my first Decathlon piece last year, Forclaz 100
| puffy for 80$, and so far so good.
| digdugdirk wrote:
| I've always considered it the European REI/MEC, albeit a
| bit on the cheaper end.
|
| For some reason outdoor gear in the US seems to go from
| low quality Walmart stuff straight to high end more
| boutique brands, skipping a "high volume, durable
| quality, no need for ultra-technical specs" solid
| affordability zone that Decathlon seems to operate in.
| tlear wrote:
| Their quality is fine. I have a lot of their cycling stuff.
| Of course those short are not gone give Bioracer run for
| its money.. but they are good enough. Their jerseys are
| good, I have their RC550 bike and it is good(not the
| tires).
|
| They have dirt cheap fishing gear kids love, also just
| generic kids clothing is pretty ok.
|
| Their winter ski stuff is also good(clothing, never tried
| actual skis or boots). It is not high end, meaning heavy
| not as warm etc but for the price it is great, for riding a
| lift whole day great deal.
|
| Make sure to check sizing. It is kind "interesting" I can
| wear medium size ski bibs(686, Burton etc), Decathlon large
| I could not squeeze into. They were super nice bibs too,
| too bad they did not have XL or I would have bought them
| zeagle wrote:
| Fair points, I certainly don't want to imply that I build
| everything I use from scratch. I couldn't ever match the
| quality or waterproof usability of my boots or build a bike
| frame. Although the latter might be a fun workshop to find...
|
| You touch on time being short as we get older. I completely
| agree but in a more general sense I think it is important to
| consider what hobbies one enjoys, who we spend time doing
| them with, and what refuels us at the end of the day.
|
| I find if I start to put a value on my personal time that
| equates my professional rate (physician, but not a high end
| specialty) nothing starts to make economic sense short of
| working really, really hard to avoid ever getting divorced.
|
| Do I garden with my wife, forage for mushrooms hiking, help
| out on a buddy's hobby farm for credit, or do I just work
| more and buy it after. Some stuff really doesn't make sense:
| I run a zfs nas, vps for encrypted offsite backup, self host
| services etc at some cost + the evening thing.
|
| A lot of this I started doing when I was a broke student that
| wanted to get into CS but it stuck as income changed due to
| enjoying it and a firm belief that the food industry and
| cloud offerings don't have my interests in mind.
|
| I haven't done the organic meat thing. It is a good thought!
| I pressure can broth from pork bones and culled laying hens
| that don't see antibiotics or exogenous hormones. I think
| next time I'll save the meat for this purpose!
|
| To your last point: our rule of thumb is a bottle of
| scotch/bourbon per 2 people per 4 nights. :)
| almog wrote:
| I'm not associated with learnmyog.com, but have been wanting to
| get into MYOG pretty much since I learned of ultralight
| backpacking and people who were making their own packs, tarps,
| quilts etc.
|
| So in 2015 I've bought an old (as in 70 years old) Singer 201-1
| which only* sew straight stitch, but it does so beautifully, is
| easy to learn, to maintain and should probably outlast me, but by
| the time it has arrived I've been off to a long hike, and when I
| returned I told myself I was too busy to find the time (and
| "courage") to get started learning to use a sewing machine.
|
| Then in 2020, an awful need to procrastinate over work lead me to
| finally learn how to thread it, the to take it apart for
| cleaning/oiling and finally I managed to half ass a face mask
| (and few other items including garments I ended up using on long-
| ish distance trails).
|
| I then went back to BPL's MYOG(1) forum and r/myog (2), both
| super useful resources that have been helping gear makers for
| many years. I think it was on r/myog that I learned of Tim's
| learnmyong.com, which has since then grew into one of the best
| resources for (hiking gear related) patterns and educational
| videos (some patters are free, others can be purchased, all the
| ones that I've tried are of excellent quality IMO). I've also had
| good results with Green Pepper patterns.
|
| * Zig zag as well as button-hole attachments do exist though (and
| they work surprisingly well)
|
| (1) https://backpackinglight.com/forums/forum/gear/make-your-
| own...
|
| (2) https://www.reddit.com/r/myog/
| mauvehaus wrote:
| I have a 15-90 and a zigzag attachment. I would note that the
| trick to the attachment is that it works by shifting the
| _fabric_ from side to side. A machine with a built-in zigzag
| function shifts the needle. This means that you 're trying to
| move the fabric in both axes through a machine cycle rather
| than just one, and that two wholly separate mechanisms are
| doing it: the feed dogs handle forward, and the attachment
| handles side to side.
|
| I've found that the heavier your fabric is the less likely it
| is that you'll be satisfied with the zigzag attachment. In
| particular, if you're trying to bar tack reinforcement points
| in gear, you might have a hard time.
|
| The buttonhole attachment, on the other hand, covers the feed
| dogs in the bed of the machine, and the buttonholer handles all
| of the movements of the fabric on its own. I've had fairly good
| luck with it. If you're only doing bar tacks, you can set it up
| to make a "button hole" with the sides overlapping, and it does
| a pretty good job.
|
| I've sewn my own lightweight tent, and I've found that you
| really don't need a zigzag for that (assuming a pattern that
| doesn't require one, obviously). Packs and duffel bags, on the
| other hand have a lot more stress on the points where the
| straps attach to the bag, and you'll likely want to be
| reinforce those points with bar tacking.
| almog wrote:
| Great explanation! I have the other zigzag model, the
| "Automatic Zigzagger", model 160985 which uses cams. Have
| only used it for finish work on thin fabrics but did use it
| to mend and reinforce denim garments, and it worked quite
| well there as well (though again it might be different if I
| tried to stick to an edge there).
|
| Tent is probably the most dreadful project I have on my list,
| I followed some very talented MYOG hobbyist (@leahikes) as
| she was designing sewing (and then resewing) her DCF tent
| (which she used on the A.T. this year) and getting all the
| angles right for a good pitch seems an epic effort. Very
| impressive that you managed to do that!
| mauvehaus wrote:
| Thanks! I think you're greatly overestimating the amount of
| perfection in my tent :-)
|
| I made my own pattern and just kind of went with it after
| making a 1/2 scale prototype. It pitched well enough and
| kept me mostly dry on the AT in 2010.
|
| If you're dreading the project, I'd encourage you to find
| the nearest small child and ask them to draw you a tent.
| Then go make what they drew. That's pretty much what I did
| [0]. If you keep it down to minimum viable tent, it's
| really not too bad. Just practice the zipper on scrap first
| if you've never sewn one before :-D
|
| Honestly, clothing intimidates me more!
|
| [0] https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ebd2/ebd2.github.io/m
| aster...
| almog wrote:
| Thanks for the encouragement! The tent looks pretty
| great, considering what was available in 2010 both in
| terms of fabrics choice and educational materials.
|
| Nowadays I'm mostly a flat-tarp user. I use an HMG 10' x
| 8' tarp which I used with some success (and some failure)
| on the HRP and GR54. Since I live in Israel, hiking
| locally means dry but often windy or humid (but not
| rainy) conditions, and for that purpose, I hope to be
| able to downsize to a 5' x 7' tarp, which I think I'll
| try my hands at once the hiking season begins here.
|
| I think that unlike everyday garments (some) hiking
| garments can be very forgiving. An example is a SilPoly
| rain pants I made last year for a fall GR54 hike. It's
| not pretty and I wouldn't use on a trail like the A.T for
| fear of frying myself, but it worked perfectly to keep me
| warm in stormy days.
| mro_name wrote:
| > I've bought an old (as in 70 years old) Singer 201-1 which
| only* sew straight stitch, but it does so beautifully, is easy
| to learn, to maintain and should probably outlast me
|
| this is how tech descriptions should sound. Not just hardware
| appliances, but also pure software. Imagine e.g. a web service
| with such properties.
|
| (Ivan Illich calls such 'convival tools')
| sarnu wrote:
| If you are interested in myog stuff, there's
| https://www.reddit.com/r/myog/ for you. Lots of inspiration and a
| place to ask questions (and have them answered).
| neilv wrote:
| I wish I'd seen this before I recently bought a sewing machine:
|
| https://learnmyog.com/zerotohero.html#tools
|
| (I simply guessed at what features I'd need, and then went with a
| non-bottom-end Singer, on the guess that I'd be less likely to
| have headaches for reasons other than my lack of sewing
| experience.)
| bckygldstn wrote:
| Outdoor gear is the perfect onramp for sewing, and it's how I got
| started!
|
| Function is more important than form outdoors, so compared to say
| your work clothes it's ok if stitching is messy or fabric doesn't
| match.
|
| Repairs are an easier way to get started than creating something
| from scratch, and outdoor stuff breaks. I've fixed and patched
| lots of holes, replaced a few zippers. Most recently mended the
| strap on my hiking pole that a critter chewed through overnight.
|
| Gear modification is another ease into sewing. Old gear can be
| modernised, features can be copied from friends' gear, and gear
| can be customised to your specific needs. I've added ice axe
| loops and hip pockets to a pack, made a frame bag the exact size
| of my mountain bike, added elastic to a drawstring bag that
| wasn't cinching properly.
| dieselgate wrote:
| This is so rad!! Made a bivy sack a couple months ago and it was
| fun (quick compared to other projects) and even more fun to use.
|
| Cool to know there are templates for other stuff out there.
|
| Getting outdoor fabrics is sort of tough without going online -
| sewing in general is underrated
| digdugdirk wrote:
| I love the idea of a bivy for bikepacking - any recommendations
| for templates/design ideas?
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