White paper lunch sacks, weighted down with sand, make a swell chimney for candles.

thanks for all your suggestions...dives me alot to consider...sorry I haven't been able to respond sooner but access to a computer is sketchy sometimes...y'all have a good one and talk again soon...

Now I am really inspired to start making some gear. I went to the local shop for scraps and fabric in Ann Arbor, MI. They have a lot of scraps of ripstop nylon, so I got two grocery bags full. Some was really big, a couple yards long. I am going to turn them into stuffsacks, shoe bags, etc.

I also bought enough leather for a leather jacket and cut it out with tin snips in the basement. It sews on my machine, but this particular leather is very thick so it's gone to a professional who has the right machine. But I cut it and made all the design decisions.

You all are really inspirational. I can't wait for the next project.

Therisa, that sounds great! If you make anything, let us know and post pictures if you can.

You guys are studs. I'm useless.

The only stuff I have improvised is using plastic bags / sacks into gear bags. One time I had to jump off of a fishing boat with all my clothes and swim to an island. I stuffed the clothes into a big garbage bag, twisted the top and doubled it over the clothes, tying it at thre other end. The clothes stayed totally dry.

I use a bilum ( a New Guinean woollen bag) for my shopping, which is great because its light, very strong and will stretch to accommodate a large amount of stuff. New Guineans even use a bilum to carry their baby pigs in.

For any Canadians out there, I stumbled upon Textile Outfitters, which carries technical fabrics and patterns from Storm Mountain Designs and Green Pepper. They even sell Primaloft! They're in Calgary.

Mittens -- variation on McCalls pattern #4683 - F

I was too cheap to buy fleece mittens to go over my gloves, so I made them instead. I bought a remnants order from Malden Mills, the makers of Polartec, and received really awesome Polartec materials in varying lengths, colors, and thicknesses. I'm guessing that the fleece I used was probably Polartech 100.

It was pretty easy to make. Rather than the elastic where it is on the pattern, I decided to leave it out. For the lining of the mittens, I used a 99 cent thrift store find -- an Addidas shirt made out of Climacool material.


Sewing instructions, pattern pieces cut out of the sheets


I doubled the fabric over, and cut the pieces out.


Yay, I have a mitten! The pattern didn't call for the wavy line on the right side -- I improvised and sewed it in myself.

Palm side of the mitten


Inside of the mitten. I used a serger-like stitch to finish the raw edges. Not pretty on the inside.


Everyone makes mistakes! I had one mitten done, then started on the next one and sewed the wrong sides together. Used my handy dandy seam ripper to undo the stitches so that I could reuse the pieces.


Lining material - climacool Addidas shirt from the thrift store


Viola! All finished -- mittens with lining sewed to them. I made a casing at the bottom of the mittens, just in case I want to add elastic to them.

Balaclava...

Using the #403 Tunturi Hat with balaclava add on pattern from Shelby -- a Finnish outdooor gear pattern company, I made a balaclava. I used the fleece that I got from Malden Mills. From the description and the way the fabric looks and acts, I'm guessing that it's a remnant of Polartec Thermal Pro with the velour surface.


Shelby pattern laid out and taped together

I took pictures of the process, but since the material I used is black, the pictures turned out pretty crappy.

Shelby's pattern was very easy to follow. On a pattern rating of very easy to difficult, I would rate it "very easy". I made it a little on the large side because I thought I was going to put lining in it. In the end, the fleece is so warm that there was no need for a liner. I think making it slightly larger gives me a bit of a conehead, but it's not that bad.

I modified the pattern because I'm going to be damn cold and want to cover my nose, too. I was inspired by this balaclava called Seirus Hoodz, which has a nose cover with a drawstring to cinch it down. Figuring out how to do this took some experimentation. I cut out a rectangular piece large enough to cover the face opening of the balaclava and long enough to be sewn into the balaclava itself. I folded the top of the rectangular piece over (about 1 inch) and sewed it to create a tube so that I could slip in a drawstring.

After a lot of trying the balaclava on and adjusting where I wanted the nose guard insert to fit, I drew lines with a blue piece of chalk. On the right side of the balaclava, I cut out a button hole were I would run the drawstring. I attached the nose cover simply by using straight stitches that ran on the sides and bottom of the rectangle, gathering it at the bottom.

I also double stitched all of the seams on the balaclava for durability.

Here's how it turned out...





Materials:
- remnant Polartec Thermal Pro? -- about half a yard -- about $1.30
- drawstring from a leftover rope -- cost was probably a few cents
- drawstring pull -- about $0.50

Total cost of project: less than $2
Time: approximately 2-3 hours (off and on, I made this in two nights)

Not exactly the sexiest piece of gear, but practical.

An authentic nose warmer!

I've been trying to design one, since it got cold.

I'm thinking a fluffy red ball, with an elastic cord will keep the tip of ones nose warm.

I think your design is definetly more flattering than that!

THe only thing I'm going to make, is a little pocket to sew onto the front of my waist belt of my backpack. The new EC packs have them, and I think they are good idea. Big enough for a public transit ticket, some pocket money, a tissue and lip balm.

you are so talented, marisa!

FYI on wicking fabric:
For xmas my aunt made me two great shirts (a cami and a tshirt) out of wicking fabric bought here. I love them, and especially love this color that she used, but the material is a bit see-through. I highly suggest ordering a sample first, or using the material knowing you will have to do two layers of material or only wear the items as a base layer.

I just made a luggage tag out of Shrinky-Dinks! I took a plain sheet of Shrinky-Dink plastic*, printed a Bootsnall logo on one side, then roughed up the other side with a nail file block, wrote my info on that side with a permanent marker, cut a hole it in, 3 minutes in the oven and Presto! A small, hard plastic luggage tag. The only downside was the plastic that I bought was not the kind meant for ink jet printers (it does exist) so the ink kept rubbing off on my hands.

If it survives the flight to PDX without breaking I shall post pictures, and invest in ink jet plastic so I can make more


*Shrinky-Dinks, for those who don't know are paper-like sheets of plastic that you color on and then bake in the oven. In the oven, they shrink down to about 1/3 the original size and become and more solid plastic form. When I was little we used to buy ones with little drawings on them that you just colored in, usually to make xmas ornaments and such.

They still make Shrinky-Dinks?

shrinky dinks are so much fun