Well after buying John Fenna's wee book on homemade gear and having bought and practiced (a little
) on a sewing machine, I thought it was about time I made something more adventurous.
I had a sleeping bag zip going spare and some goretex (around 4.5 meters by around 1.5 meters wide) so decided to have a go at making a double goretex bivi bag. I wanted a huge bivi bag that I could use as a wildife hide as well as a bivibag so that my wife and I could travel light and wake up on a high moor over looking mountains with only dew on us in the morning...old romantic at heart.
Here is the result.
I was around a meter short of material for the hood/cowl as I wanted to emulate the uk army style hood but came up with a workable alternative.
The hood is a combination of a drawcord and press stud closure. This combination allows the hood to be completley unfolded and layed out flat and the full length side zip can be opened right up to allow easy entry/exit.
I didn't have the space to work with patterns so most of the work was done with a steel ruler, marker pen and an old sewing machine and a good eye. I had to join the fabric on the underside using a "flat felt ?seam", this was an absolute nightmare to do on such a big piece of material. All the other seams were relatively simple and the zip was a breeeze. The stitching is a bit rough as it was quite difficult to find the right tension for the material at times but on the whole was a lot of fun to make.
A good tip for using press studs on goretex. Once you punch your holes and push half the stud through before rivoting it;superglue around the stud and this will stop the goretex from fraying and the studs from pulling through.
My intention was to tape seal the seams but it's a huge hassle to do it properly without the right gear and my seams are not that great so all I'm going to do is use clear bathroom silicon thinned down over the seams and when I get some more waterpoof material in dpm will make a double zip flap for the zip.
Thanks for the advice in the book John F, it was tricky getting my hea dinto patterns and seams but I'd say to anyone "give it a go" as it's a lot of fun.
WS
PS... all this for around £20 ;-)
) on a sewing machine, I thought it was about time I made something more adventurous.I had a sleeping bag zip going spare and some goretex (around 4.5 meters by around 1.5 meters wide) so decided to have a go at making a double goretex bivi bag. I wanted a huge bivi bag that I could use as a wildife hide as well as a bivibag so that my wife and I could travel light and wake up on a high moor over looking mountains with only dew on us in the morning...old romantic at heart.
Here is the result.
I was around a meter short of material for the hood/cowl as I wanted to emulate the uk army style hood but came up with a workable alternative.
The hood is a combination of a drawcord and press stud closure. This combination allows the hood to be completley unfolded and layed out flat and the full length side zip can be opened right up to allow easy entry/exit.
I didn't have the space to work with patterns so most of the work was done with a steel ruler, marker pen and an old sewing machine and a good eye. I had to join the fabric on the underside using a "flat felt ?seam", this was an absolute nightmare to do on such a big piece of material. All the other seams were relatively simple and the zip was a breeeze. The stitching is a bit rough as it was quite difficult to find the right tension for the material at times but on the whole was a lot of fun to make.
A good tip for using press studs on goretex. Once you punch your holes and push half the stud through before rivoting it;superglue around the stud and this will stop the goretex from fraying and the studs from pulling through.
My intention was to tape seal the seams but it's a huge hassle to do it properly without the right gear and my seams are not that great so all I'm going to do is use clear bathroom silicon thinned down over the seams and when I get some more waterpoof material in dpm will make a double zip flap for the zip.
Thanks for the advice in the book John F, it was tricky getting my hea dinto patterns and seams but I'd say to anyone "give it a go" as it's a lot of fun.
WS
PS... all this for around £20 ;-)
