It may seem like an odd concept, but I sew a button hole on my bandanas. A bandana is an amazingly useful piece of outdoor kit. It can act as washcloth, towel, strainer, dust mask, handkerchief, bandage, and even, with care, a holder for hot items.
Tag: DIY gear Page 1 of 2
Posts about making your own camping gear.
We’ve written a couple of posts about taking care of your camping and hiking gear (here, here and here). Today I thought I would talk about a fairly common part of gear and clothing that can cause issue. Drawstrings can be found on clothing, packs, stuff sacks and sleeping bags. It’s easy to have a drawstring pull out of the casing if you aren’t careful.
When you’re backpacking in the wilderness, every piece of gear you carry needs to work properly. If critical gear fails, you may have to cut your trip short. So it makes sense to carry a repair kit of some sort to deal with common problems. But what do you put in the kit?
Part one of this series talked about the fabrics. Today we cover washing them. Using the proper settings to wash and dry your clothing and other gear will help it last longer, keep colors brighter and avoid damage. Some clothing has tags that tell you to wash in cold water and hang to dry while others might just have a series of symbols.
Of course, these are actual hieroglyphics, but unless you understand laundry care symbols, it’s not any different.
Taking care of your camping gear (and other items) means it will last longer and work better. It is more sustainable and will save you money. This is the first in a series about caring for your gear. Today, I am going to cover fabrics and insulators. Knowing what the material is will help you care for it properly.
We have some of those giant citronella candles to use in the back yard. They work very well to reduce the mosquitos, but they produce a lot of scraps. So, of course, I wanted to use them up. I’ve talked about using leftover fabric and food, but here’s another type of leftover.
I’ve posted about the tools, materials, and even the hooks used in fly tying. Today we’re going to tie it all together (sorry!) and make a fly.
We’re going to make a fly called a Blue Wing Olive. It’s intended to imitate mayflies of the genus Baetis. There’s thousands of species in the genus, but most of them have an olive green body, with grey wings, tail, and legs.
In a previous post I talked about fly tying materials. And in another post I discussed the tools used to tie fishing flies. Today, I’d like to discuss the fish hooks used for fly fishing. Fly tiers use a wide variety of types of hooks. Let’s look into why they do that.