Make your own gear

Everyone loves a hike in the woods. But as someone who is also interested in multi-day backcountry camping, I recognize the importance of carrying proper backpacking gears in order to staying warm and dry on the trails and under changing weather conditions. Unfortunately, quality gears can be expensive and more often than not, outdoor clothing don't fit me well. Having some DIY experience, I started looking into ways to make my own gears. Make-your-own-gear or MYOG is in fact a common practice in the hiking community, dating back to the days before outdoor gear and clothing companies became a thing.

In 2018, I purchased a second hand sewing machine from Facebook Marketplace, a basic 14-stitch Brother SM1400, and started making stuff sacks. Stuff sacks are great for organizing the backpack and they are one of the simplest sewing projects for a beginner. Ever since, some of my stuff sacks made from 1.1oz ripstop nylon have been with me on every camping trip and they still last to this day.

Then I decided to step up my game and make something more complex. My second project was to modify a Costco down throw into a hammock under quilt. The under quilt turned out quite well. Paired with my Warbonnet Blackbird hammock, they made a great 3-season camping setup.

I also made a lightweight (3.1oz/88g) pocketless wind pant from 1.9oz ripstop nylon. I wore the pant while hiking at Yosemite National Park in January 2019.

After experimenting with ripstop nylon, I started looking into technical fleece. I really liked the lightweight, breathability, and odor-resistance of the Patagonia R1 pullover hoody but at the price of $159 MSRP, it was a tad expensive for me. At that time, a functionally similar but more affordable alternative was the Melanzana's Micro Grid Hoodie. Like the R1, the Melly hoodie was also made of Polartec power grid fleece but it only costed half the price. Unfortunately, the only way to get a Melly was to visit its brick-and-mortar store in Leadville, Colorado.

I soon found out that the R1 and Melly type of fleece can be purchased by the roll at a reasonable price. During the summer of 2019, I bought the Polartec power grid fleece together with several other types of Polartec fleece and started making prototypes. My first MYOG Polartec power grid fleece hoodie was made using the pattern cut out from an old pullover. The hoodie was warm, mosture wicking, and odor resistance, as expected from the performance fabric. It weighted at 6.3oz (179g) and only costed 10 bucks to make!

But as much as I liked the hoodie, there were two things that kept bugging me. First, the hoodie does not hug the body like the R1, especially around the arm opening. As a trail garment, this is not a big deal. Still, I can't help thinking about how to improve the fit by fine-tuning the pattern.

The second issue was more difficult to address. Technical garments like the R1 use flatlock stitch to join the fabric. The flatlock stitch flattens the seam, makes the garment more comfortable to wear, and reduces chaffing, which can develop if the garment is worn under a heavy backpack over an extended period of time. The flatlock seam is a great-to-have feature in base and mid layers. However, to make this seam requires a special kind of sewing machine, which can cost thousands of dollars. My sewing machine only provides 14 basic stitches, and the stitching method I employed was far less then ideal.

After several failed attempts, I found a stitching method to produce a seam that is "close enough" to a flatlock seam. This method worked by combining the straight stitch and zigzag stitch. The straight stitch temporarily held two pieces of fabric together and the zigzag stitch went right over the straight stitch. After that, the straight stitch was removed. The resulting seam only contained the zigzag stitch, allowing the fabric to stretch along the direction of the seam. I adopted this method to make two pullovers from the Polartec powerdry fleece. I also used a more sophisticated pattern by tracing the cut of a Patagonia R1 1/4 zip pullover. The result was satisfying! Weighting at 7.4oz (210g), the pullovers fit wonderfully and the stitching method only doubled the thickness of the fabric at the seam. (In contrast, a flat felled seam commonly seen in jeans would quadruple the thickness of the fabric at the seam.) Except for some minor pilling, the pullovers held up very well. They are essential to my winter clothes rotation both on and off the trails.

As I was painstakingly tracing the cut of the R1, I realized the importance of a properly designed pattern. In fact, designing good clothing patterns are deceptively difficult, because the pattern is cut out of a 2D surface (i.e., the fabric) to wrap around a 3D object (i.e., your body) and the 3D object can twist and turn and bend in all directions.

After searching the web, I came across the Green Peppers outdoor clothing patterns. Using the lodge jacket pattern, I made a shirtjac from the heavyweight Polartec power strech fleece. The shirtjac turned out really well and weighted at only 12.1oz (343g), just an ounce heavier than a typical R1 hoodie. I wore it as the mid layer in a multi-day backpacking trip to Badlands, Yellowstone, and Grand Teton National Park in late August 2019. Unfortunately, the jacket shrank after every washing cycle. By the time I realized the shrinking problem, it was already one size smaller.

My last MYOG project in 2019 and to date was to sew a top quilt for backcountry camping. The quilt was made of 5oz/sq yd Climashield APEX insulation sandwiched between two layers of 0.9oz membrane 15. The quilt was tapered at the bottom, where I installed a 24in YKK zipper and a shock cord to turn the quilt into a sleeping bag if needed.