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Tailor’s Chalk to mark your materials like a pro
The complexity of your work will gradually increase as you build up confidence and skills. When that time comes, you will need to temporarily mark your fabrics and no longer just marking seams and cut lines where no-one will see the permanent marker’s strokes. I find that even on high-tech fabrics, the most versatile and …
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Good pattern and high-contrast Cutting Mat is a must
Since I mentioned the rotary cutter being an absolute necessity in another post, it goes without saying that you will need a cutting mat. There are outrageously cheap ones out there, and then there are better ones. They will all let you cut what you need, but I have found that, over the years, the …
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You will be known as Edward Scissorhands
You will absolutely need a rotary cutter, as well as some good quality shears. If you need to pick one, get the Prym 45mm Maxi rotary cutter. I have been using mine since 2017, and after 5 years of intense use, it still cuts everything I need. Rotary cutters come in different sizes. I find …
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You never have enough clips
Whether you need to hold a piece of webbing in place, or just dry-assemble a couple of panels together to get a sense of the look and feel of your creation before stitching every into its final position, you will need small plastic clips. I have more than 100 of these, and I have ran …
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No Need for Needles Bonenza
If you are starting, the choice of needles is probably overwhelming at the beginning. The choice of needle should be based on the type of fabric and the thread you plan on using. I use a high quality polyester thread made in germany (Alterfil S100) and I mostly alternate between universal 80/12 and universal 100/16 …
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The Singer 4423 will get you a very long way
I would absolutely recommend the Singer 4423 if you are serious about learning the craft but you are looking for a small new machine. It’s other siblings simply offer more stitch types, none of which I would ever use for what I make. Simpler is better when it comes to fine machines. I find it …
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How do I determine pack volume?
When it comes down to ultralight packs, the number #1 feature for me is volume to weight ratio. Unfortunately, while weighing a pack is easy, measuring volume is not so simple, so sometimes an estimate just has to be good enough. Generally speaking, the backpacking industry tends to over estimate (or over advertise) pack volume …
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A Pack for Practice
There is never a good reason not to make something. But the truth is, sometimes one simply does not have enough time to spend making. Well, these are times when you might just need to take a step back and think. So I did, and figured if I only had 2 hours in front of …
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The Graffiti Pack
Every so often a challenge comes along that one can’t refuse. When fellow maker @windisch.designs challenged me to make a pack, I figured I had to oblige, so I did. Since I was pressed for time, I had to find something I could build in a pinch. I turned to Instagram for inspiration, and found …
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The Upcycled Pack
In the last post I shared a few words about one of the best challenges you can try on the cheap. All you really need is an old (or new) Ikea shopping bag (the Frakta), your scrap bin, and a sewing station. The following pictures are the result of the challenge. What do you think? …
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Upcycling an Ikea Frakta bag is the perfect challenge for you!
In the same vain as the Cotton experiments, I thought I’d also expend the fabric tryouts to the good’ol Ikea Frakta bag, which costs a literal 1€. What started as a joke ended up being the real deal: A friend of mine and fellow maker/hiker challenged me to make a decent looking bag with just …
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The Cotton Trilogy
The first two trials were aiming for members of the fairer sex – and so far – seems like they’re holding up alright, as they’ve been sporadically used for a few months. In the same vain, I figured I’d make one for myself – so I reused the design of the previous satchel which I …
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Check out how Santa’s pack build process looks like
I’m looking forward to a new year of making packs. And what better way to kick it off than to publish a random selection of the behind the scene pictures I shot while building Santa’s pack. Now I need a new project I guess 😁
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The Very Merry Christmas Pack 🎄
Here we are, pack is finished and ready to be gift wrapped. I think words speak less than pictures, so I will now paste some pictures! Unfortunately, I had little time to take snapshots before wrapping it up and leaving for vacation. But stay tuned, since I do have a mountain of behind the scene …
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Walkthrough building Santa’s Pack
Given that my goal here was to make a good looking day-pack which can double as hiking backpack for a Christmas gift, I did not go overboard with the design and details, and stayed within the realm of lightweight and simple designs with more generic features. I opted for the lean front instead of a …
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Time for a Custom Christmas Pack
Although I’ve had limited time to work on new designs in the last months, I still had one goal for Christmas! Make Santa’s carrying sack . So I got my hand on some bright red X-Pac VX-21 which I knew was going to do the trick, and had some white VX-07 on hand for the …
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Backpack Design 101: You’ve got to start
I must have been spending hours on the concept itself, and just mentally iterating through constructions and ideas, starting from a burrito shape, to ultra complicated constructions, until I finally landed on a appealing concept. After that, I easily spent 20 hours building the pack itself. But between the build idea, and the first cuts, …
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Working with X-Pac X10 is tough
I had a ton of fun doing this project. I have to say, working with X-Pac X10 was harder than I expected. The 360g/sqm fabric is extremely stiff, but the look and feel of that fabric is totally worth the effort. I wouldn’t try to do anything too complicated with it though. The design itself …
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The Monarch Pack
After the more classical Ballast and Skinny packs, I really wanted to try something new, and different, while still keeping the overall look and feel of the series! This November I present to you: the Monarch! I do not mean the head of state guy, but rather the butterfly, and if you read on, you’ll understand where the name …
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Bricks can’t go wrong. Greeblies come later.
A lot of bags follow a relatively simple “brick-like” construction. These bags might not have the best looks, but they are definitely the easiest to build without a lot of experience, and you’ll get a perfectly functional bag. I ended up using this one for a 10 days solo trip above the arctic circle and …
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Afterthoughts on a V-Shaped Pack
The final shape is extremely pleasing, and mostly due to the combination of the V-shape design and the very subtle curves. To ensure the cuts were symmetrical given the slightly higher complexity than usual, this was the first time I spent the time creating a mostly complete pattern for the main panels (all but the …
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The Skinny Pack’s Pattern
You might be wandering what the “buffers” are for. I added them to the pattern so that even with even seam allowance, you should end-up with more fabrics on the tricky parts, which you can then trim later during the pack build. As always, go slow, and use clips! If you don’t have a printer …
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Seam-sealing the Skinny Pack
Let me share with you some afterthoughts on my first foray into seam-sealing. I did a bit of digging, and opted to use 3M 9485PC double sided transfer tape. Overall, it’s a great product to work with, but I think the fabric used here, (Dyneema®/Nylon Ripstop) is too heavy and does not bend well enough …
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Thick Foam in Shoulder Straps
I love building backpacks. I just do. But the one thing that I enjoy the least, is building padded shoulder straps. Between the threads making a mess, the clearance below the presser foot not being enough, and the needle breaking because of tensioning issues, I moved away from padding shoulder straps entirely. Nonetheless, here is …
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The City Hiker Pack
The City Hiker, as the name says, is build with less outdoor and more city commute in mind. Although using the usual construction techniques of ultralight hiking/trekking packs, this particular pack emphasizes small volume and high comfort with maximum padding of the shoulder straps, and of the back panel with a thick high quality closed …
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Building one panel at a time
There is something to be said about simple designs. In this case, building the Slumber pack as a very simple “brick” shape made the construction of each panel a breeze, and completely independent from one-another, at least until the final assembly.
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Feature breakdown of the Slumber pack
It’s always difficult to make a distinction between nice-to-have and must-have features. Here is a breakdown you might find useful in your deliberations. A 3mm Cord load lifter with LineLoc. B Cam side release buckle on 15mm strong webbing. C Daisy chain out of strong 15mm webbing. D Side compression systems out of cord, hook, …
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The Slumber Pack
The ABC Slumber is a 20+ liter pack designed for short overnight hikes, while carrying limited supplies, and maybe a bivy and sleeping bag combo. It’ll fit a deflated sleeping pad (which can be strapped on-top or below the pack), a good 2 liters of water, some warm layer(s) and rain protection. And of course, …