Gear and More Gear

I've entered the realm of making my own gear, which is a good thing.  I have an appetite for the stuff, after all.  I realized that if I want to hike in April[1], I'm going to need something warmer than microfleece, which is what I use in the summer for post-hiking chill protection.  

First, I shopped on line.  After seeing some climbing clothes for women in the REI catalog, I had an idea of what I wanted.  These tops were princess-line cut and fitted.  This wastes no cloth, no weight and there's no extra space to heat up[2].  I thought this was a good idea, so I started looking for a Polartec 200 jacket of that design.  The only ones I found were over $100, which is more than I was willing to spend.  And then I remembered I can sew.

At this point, I now have it done except for the zipper and hems.  It's blaze orange (it's too warm for summer anyway, so I picked a color useful for another reason -- not getting shot at), and I think it will do nicely.

See, I need to trim money somewhere because I really want this new sleeping bag.  I have the money to buy it.  I just don't know if I can justify spending it on more gear.  I did buy new boots[3], but I also did wear my old ones out.  The sleeping bag I have just doesn't work really well for me.  It doesn't unzip all the way, so if I'm too warm, I'm screwed.  Also, I sleep on my belly and I can't sleep with my legs together.  This causes all sorts of problems with trying to sleep on the ground, in a mummy bag.  It's hard enough to get comfortable on the ground with critters knocking around in the bushes without having your bag cause problems.

Oops.  I think I justified it.  

I may also make a fanny pack.  None of the ones I have are quite right, and I can whip one up out of ripstop from the fabric store.  They even have webbing and plastic buckles and stuff.  I may even set it up so that the belt part just attaches to my pack -- it doesn't have a hip belt anyway, and this way, I kill two birds with one stone.

On my old Jansport bag, I attached two buckles to the hip belt and then attached my fanny pack to that.  The problem there is that I had a hip belt and a fanny pack, which is sort of unnecessary.  I used to call it the Tinolator since he helped me figure out how I could solve that problem (the buckle from the fanny back was between me and my pack and cinched down because of the hipbelt, which is bad).

Note to self:  never put Earl Grey in a plastic thermos mug thing if you ever intend to use it for anything else ever again.  That bergamot odor just will not go away, dammit.