My new backpack!

I started this project in august (pattern and material list) / september (actual sewing) and finally, this evening, it is usable!

It wasn't the only project running (not even the only *sewing* project), but still it took enough time that I'm glad I can finally use it, even if right now it doesn't really have any real advantage over what I could have bought from any store for less money than I spent on materials (but I have many leftovers — and plans to use at least part of them)

It also was pretty challenging, both for my skills and for my home sewing machine, and there are a few things that could have been done better (and maybe they will, in the next backpack I'll make?)

But is it really done? No, that webbing in the front (and sides) is there to attach extensions, and I have at least a couple planned (one easy, that I will do soon, and another complex one that will wait until I've recovered from the project fatigue with something completely different).

I'm also still waiting for the buckles that will close the compression straps in the front (not that they are really needed now that there are no extensions to keep compressed), but they are details I can take care of later.

P.S. I took pictures and notes, and the pattern is already on git, but a full tutorial will have to wait, probably even months, as now I have a bit of sewing backlog.

In one of the comments (near the bottom) on http://tacticalintelligence.net/blog/slatts-rescue-belt.htm there was a suggestion to alternate the direction of the loops to prevent the paracord from twisting badly.

This is the process and the result:

(making a full belt with 20m of paracord took about a day of picking it up, doing a couple of rows while in front of the computer and putting it down again)

A piecepack set of generic board game pieces is nice to have around in case of a sudden spontaneous need of gaming, but carrying my full set takes some room, and is not going to fit in my daily bag.

I've been thinking for a while that an half-size set could be useful, and between yesterday and today I've actually managed to do the first version.

It's (2d) printed on both sides of a single sheet of heavy paper, laminated and then cut, comes with both the basic suites and the playing card expansion and fits in a mint tin divided by origami boxes.

It's just version 0.1 because there are a few issues: first of all I'm not happy with the manual way I used to draw the page: ideally it would have been programmatically generated from the same svg files as the 3d piecepack (with the ability to generate other expansions), but apparently reading paths from an svg and writing it in another svg is not supported in an easy way by the libraries I could find, and looking for it was starting to take much more time than just doing it by hand.

I also still have to assemble the dice; in the picture above I'm just using the ones from the 3d-printed set, but they are a bit too big and only four of them fit in the mint tin. I already have the faces printed, so this is going to be fixed in the next few days.

Source files are available in the same git repository as the 3d-printable piecepack, with the big limitation mentioned above; updates will also be pushed there, just don't hold your breath for it :)

I may have been sewing myself a new pajama.

It was plagued with issues; one of the sleeve is wrong side out and I only realized it when everything was almost done (luckily the pattern is symmetric and it is barely noticeable) and the swirl moved while I was sewing it on (and the sewing machine got stuck multiple times: next time I'm using interfacing, full stop.), and it's a bit deformed, but it's done.

For the swirl, I used Inkscape to Simplify (Ctrl-L) the original Debian Swirl a few times, removed the isolated bits, adjusted some spline nodes by hand and printed on paper. I've then cut, used water soluble glue to attach it to the wrong side of a scrap of red fabric, cut the fabric, removed the paper and then pinned and sewed the fabric on the pajama top.
As mentioned above, the next time I'm doing something like this, some interfacing will be involved somewhere, to keep me sane and the sewing machine happy.

Blogging, because it is somewhat relevant to Free Software :) and there are even sources, under a DFSG-Free license :)

I will do another post later with the sources[esc]bdwapattern of the skirt (the shirtwaist is adapted from a commercial pattern) and more details, but this is the outfit I wore at Lucca Comics this year.

And this post is completely SFW *even* in an Edwardian workplace!

Not worn for obvious reasons, but my first pair of split drawers, with a pattern inspired by a number of start-of-century manuals found on archive.org, but adapted to a more modern method.

These were made from an old bedsheet (and they show it, including bleach stains on the side not seen on the pictures), and I have to enlarge them a bit, but they are already wearable.

Detailed instructions to draft the pattern will be available... when ready (probably before the next debian stable release, probably) :)

Lately I have been sewing a bit and since "daguerrotype or it didn't happen", this is a picture of me wearing mostly underwear :)