kiddie leashes

Look, some people love them, others hate them. I think most people fall into one of the two camps. Child leashes seem to polarise people. I think its because the people that hate them can't understand why you would want to treat your child like a dog, but the people that love them realise how valuable they can be at keeping ultra-adventurous kids from running off.

Personally I don't much like the look of a child on a leash, however, when we were first thinking of taking Bendy on her first overseas trip, we wondered whether it would be a good idea to have one. The Bookworm is a very compliant child, and if you tell her not to do something, she will comply. Bendy, however, likes to see what she can get away with. For her, we wondered whether a leash might be really useful in busy places like airports and on New York sidewalks.

At the time, I only knew of the sort of leash that is just a harness. I don't like the look of them, and I can't imagine a kid does either. So I thought about how I could make a leash a little more inviting and even desirable to a child. I decided to make a harness with a built in tulle skirt with sparkly sequins sewn onto it. For a little girl I hoped that this might make it more desirable. It did. We tried it out at the shops with Bendy before we went on our trip. She did like it (a bit). However, by the time our trip came, we realised that she really didn't need it, so I don't think we even ended up taking it with us.

My nephew though, has a backpack type leash that he loves. The backpack is in the shape of a dog, and he calls it Scrufty (I think this is the name of Bob the Builder's dog) and he loved it. He no longer needs it as he has matured. But it was really useful when he was younger.

Its in the same style as the one pictured at the top of the post. I had a look on Amazon, and there's actually a large range of different animals that you can have: a lion, a horse, a panda, a pink poodle, a cow, a giraffe, a monkey, a koala, a lamb, a frog, and even a unicorn. And then there's a range of Disney characters including Piglet, Eeyore, Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, Pluto (who looks like his neck is broken - nice touch!), Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse. Pretty much something for all tastes... So they are quite a bit more palatable (for the adults) and desirable (for the kids) than the plain harness type (which are also still available) I used to see when I was younger.

For travelling with kids, they can give peace of mind. Though you'll have to ignore the dirty looks that people who find them offensive might give you! For me, I don't think I'd care what other people thought if I felt it was going to keep my child safer than without.

Waterproof versus water repellant

I've had a question from one of our readers about the difference between waterproof and water repellant fabrics, so that she could figure out what to use to make some travel clothing for her kids.

I tried writing about this and found myself wandering round and round in circles getting myself more and more confused. So instead I'll send to you someone whose knowledge I really respect: Roger Caffin, at www.bushwalking.org.au.

You can find really in depth, thoughtful information on the following page (with lots of links to more pages):
http://www.bushwalking.org.au/FAQ/FAQ_Rainwear.htm

Sorry, I tried to do it myself, but why reinvent the wheel?

not all fabrics are created equal

In my quest for my perfect travel bag - one which I think I'll have to make - I read the other day on the Tom Bihn forums about a fabric test that they had submitted their fabric and a competitor's fabric to.

It was interesting to see that the Tom Bihn 1050 denier fabric turned out to be more wear-resistant than a 1680 denier fabric. You can see the pictures and a blurb about it at the Tom Bihn website.

Doug Dyment, has a wonderful explanation about types of fabric at www.onebag.com. You'll need to scroll down to the heading: "Quality Luggage Components".

Doug explains the differences between different weights (denier is a measure of weight, not strength) and the difference between ballistic nylon and cordura nylon.

All this means the plot thickens in my local search for the perfect fabric. While I can find two places here in Sydney where I can get luggage-type fabric, without seeing the fabrics, its hard to know quite what they're like. I do like the shinyness of ballistic nylon, but the fabrics I have found are cordura, rather than ballistic.

In case you're interested, the two sources that I have found so far are Synergy Textiles (caution: very unattractive website!), and Ricky Richards. I'd love to know if there are any places in Australia selling ballistic nylon fabric by the metre. Anyone?

Make your own gear: satchel bag

Last Saturday I went to a local furnishing fabric wholesaler's special "direct to the public" sale. The wholesaler does really high quality fabrics, many of which were absolutely gorgeous.

I picked up an offcut of some animal print suede. Its normally about $70/m but I got my offcut for just $5. There was enough there for me to make a bag. So I set about designing a bag to use it with. I wanted to experiment with lots of pockets to see which ones ended up being useful.

Following are the pictures of the resulting bag (numbered 1-5, left to right, top to bottom). Its a satchel/messenger style bag (1), with a top flap, that has a sort-of hidden zip pocket (2). It has another zip pocket in the bag body underneath the flap (3). Then there is the main section of the bag (3), and on the back is a magazine pocket (4). The straps attach on the sides (5).


I used a plain black polycotton poplin for the lining. The strap is made of black strap webbing.

I was really happy the result, and have used it a couple of times already. I wear it across my body, rather than just on one shoulder. Its comfortable, and very workable.

I like the back magazine pocket - as well as for books and magazines, its also just the right size for one of my books in its mailing envelope - really useful for ducking up to the shops to post them! (I sell the books that I have written via mail order, as well as them being available through craft shops). The front hidden pocket is good for a notebook and pen. The zip pocket under the flap is good for a lightweight cardigan or jacket and my keys. In the main section I can easily fit my 600ml drink bottle, my wallet, an umbrella, and various other bits, with lots of room to spare for if I need to pack more stuff into it.

What would I change? Well, I haven't yet figured out how to secure the top flap. I'd like some way to have it a bit more secure, rather than just having it flapping freely up and down. I wondered about a magnetic clasp or a plastic clip where you press the sides in for buckle release (if you know the sort I mean).

I'd also like to put a slider into the strap so that the length is adjustable, but I didn't have one when I was making it. Its ok the length it is, for ME, but if anyone else wanted to use the bag, it might not be just right for them.

I would also make the zip of front hidden pocket finish a little higher. At the moment it goes right to the bottom of the flap. If it finished even just 2cm higher, it would make things a little less likely to fall out - they don't fall out easily as it stands, but I think it could be an improvement - and it would mean that I could take some of the bulk from the zipper out of the seam at the bottom of the flap.

Of course, apart from the flap securing part, these are only minor things that can easily be fixed. I really think that I need some way to secure down the front flap for the sake of travelling. I just think that its a little too tempting for pickpockets the way it is. Its ok for my normal everyday life of taking the kids to school, and going up to the local shops.

And all of this is just practising and finding out how bag making and bag design works in preparation for designing and making my own luggage for travelling light. As I've mentioned in a previous post, I'd like to lose the wheels from my luggage because it will be lighter. I am used to carrying a backpack on my shoulders, so wouldn't have a problem with loading them up.

I think that a dedicated travel luggage backpack would be really suitable for travel with kids, because it will mean that I can hold hands and attend to them without worrying about holding onto my bag. And anything that makes my life easier when travelling is going to help me with enjoying travel with kids!

make your own gear: finding clothing patterns

I often enjoy looking at other people's packing lists. On some of the Ultralight (UL) and super-ultralight (SUL) backpacking websites, you can read really interesting articles about people's efforts to cut the amount and weight of stuff down so that they can travel REALLY light. I look at these lists and think "Yes, but how much does all this cost?" Beside the weight column, I often wish they had another column: cost!

Because a lot of technology and experimentation goes into the high-tech fabrics and gear that people use for these sorts of exploits, the dollars add up pretty quickly! BUT if you make your own gear, this can considerably reduce the cost.

However, one of the most difficult aspects of making your own gear for travelling light is trying to find patterns to use. If you're like me and are incredibly jealous of those people who can draft their own clothing patterns, but are not able to do it yourself, you're going to have to find a suitable pattern from somewhere. Most of the regular clothing pattern companies don't really do patterns that are purpose-designed for outdoor gear, so you have to look further.

In my online travels, these are the ones I have found:

• Jalie patterns. Jalie make contemporary ultra-multisize sewing patterns (from child to adult) for outdoor gear, sportswear (cycling, gymnastics, skating, swimming, and ballet), maternity and casual wear.


• Green Pepper Patterns. Adult and children's outdoor clothing, and acccessories such as hats and bags.


• Shelby Extreme Materials and Gear. Outdoor clothing tested by the Finnish Scouts! Both shareware and retail patterns.


• Thru-Hiker.com. Kits for outdoor gear, including materials needed. Not available as patterns only. Forum community to help with construction and any questions.


• Sew-Go patterns. Bags, tents, bike bags, sleeping bags, clothing, etc.


• Controlled Exposure Patterns. Hat, gloves, gaiters, pants.


• The Rainshed. Books and patterns for outdoor gear.

If you know of other patterns for outdoor gear, please let me know, and I will add them to the list.

Make your own gear: windshell

I have finished making my windshell out of the pertex fabric.


It looks a little crushed because I'd just taken it out of its stuff sac just before the photo. It squishes down to be wonderfully tiny, as you can see from it in its stuff sac.

The completed windshell jacket weighs just 93grams including its little sac. I was really pleased with the result.

The pattern I have used is a free pattern from Shelby Extreme Materials and Gear, called Vuokatti. I stumbled across the Shelby website, while looking for something else. I then noticed that they had some patterns for sale, and THEN noticed that they had some for free. I looked through them and decided that I would be able to adapt the Vuokatti pattern to make what I wanted.

Vuokatti is actually a pattern for a knit top, with no zip. Because I wanted to use woven fabric, instead of a knit, I first did a test from some similar fabric to see that the fit was ok. I needed to make a few adjustments to make the less "male" and more female in shape. I also needed to adapt it to put the full zip down the front.

Am really happy with the result, particularly that it compacts so well, and is so light. This afternoon we are supposed to be having some light showers, so I look forward to seeing how water-resistant it is. Pertex fabric is not waterproof, but is water-resistant. It will be interesting to see how it goes, but any water-resistance is basically a bonus, because that's not the point of this item of clothing.

The idea of a windshell is not that it is water-proof - that would be a different piece of clothing. A windshell is to cut the amount of wind that goes through one's clothing, the idea being that if you cut the windchill, you make yourself much warmer. My plan therefore is that I will be able to wear this over the top of my other clothing so that I cut the windchill.

Taking into account the amount of fabric I have used, the zip, the binding and the thread, my jacket has cost me the princely sum of $AU20 - a huge saving on what you might pay retail.

Make your own gear: travel clothes

Sewing is something of a lost art these days, but for those who like me do still sew, it can be frustrating to not be able to easily buy those special fabrics that you want.

When we took our last trip overseas, because we wanted to travel light, we took clothes with us that were specifically designed to dry quickly. (If you take less, you have to wash more often... or just stink.) Now pretty much any nylon or polyester of a light weight will dry quickly, but many will also be like living in a sauna in hot climates, because they often just don't breathe.

There are lots of high-tech new fabrics out there that have been carefully engineered to wick moisture away from the skin - making you feel drier and more comfortable - AND also dry quickly, and with a minimum of wrinkling. These are the holy grail of fabrics for travel clothes.

Of course, you can just go out and buy a purpose-made travel wardrobe, but these items of clothing tend to be expensive. And for kids, the clothing can be almost impossible to find! Sure, you can often get fleece clothing and maybe raingear for kids, but other clothing is a bit harder to come by.

So I solved this by making clothes out of these high-tech fabrics for my kids last time. Sounds simple, but finding the fabrics can be really difficult, especially in a country like Australia. While the manufacturers can easily enough obtain these fabrics, because they buy in bulk, buying these fabrics retail by the yard or metre can be quite hard!

Where to get wicking, quick dry, wrinkle-free fabrics:

• Try looking on eBay. This can mean hours of trawling, and its quite difficult if you're not sure what you're looking for. Then once you find something that looks promising, it can be difficult to know exactly what you are getting. You just have to hope for the best sometimes, if you decide to go this route.
  
  I recently purchased some fabric on eBay that was said to be Pertex, which is a breathable DWR (durable water repellant) fabric that I intend to make into windshells. Now apparently Pertex cannot be purchased retail. So I'm not sure where this fabric came from, or even if it really IS Pertex. However, now that I've received it, I've tested it out - I can breathe through it easily enough, and water flicked onto it just balls up and runs off. So whether it is Pertex or not, it does what I want it to, so I'm happy. And it was a good price. :-) I'll get several windshells out of the 10 metres that I bought for less than $100, instead of paying hundreds for a shop-bought top.


• For our last trip I bought a load of fabric from Rose City Textiles in Portland, Oregon, USA. They specialise in selling closeout fabrics from large domestically produced sportswear companies. They first sent me a small range of samples which I had chosen from their very large range. Then I evaluated them for what I wanted, and sent in my order. Rose City Textiles were a pleasure to deal with, and my order arrived quickly and in good condition.

There are many other fabric retailers catering mostly to the outdoor/adventure/backpacking type community, that you can also purchase from, though I haven't found any anywhere other than America and Canada. Maybe that's the subject for another post. Australia sorely needs a retailer like this.

If you have had some success purchasing high-tech fabrics for your travel clothing needs, please let me know who you dealt with, and what you liked about them. It would be great to put together a list of these sorts of companies as a resource for all of us.

Happy sewing!

favourite travel items: bottle bags

We've been on hot summer holidays before where we need to drink a lot of water. It felt like the whole time we were being nagged by kids for a drink, and it also was a pain having to lug around about 4 bottles of water. This time we decided it would be different: the kids could carry their own drink bottles.

I decided to make a little bottle bag pouch for each of them that they could carry over their shoulders and across their bodies. That way, they could have a drink when they wanted to, and we would only have to carry our own water. I used the same quick dry fabric as I made them each a pair of pants from. That way, if the water spilled it would dry pretty quickly.

I made a fabric tube a little bigger than the size of the bottle, and put a bottom on it. I then added a thin shoulder strap made from some fabric tape. Bottle bags, Mark I.

On their first use, it became apparent that the strap was a terrible design. It was the right length, but because it was so thin, it cut into their necks and was terribly uncomfortable. Hmm, a redesign was needed - and quickly!

Not having much to work with in our hotel room in Paris, I decided to use a pair of the airline socks that we'd been given on the plane. I wrapped them around the strap, and with some string I'd brought with me, I tied them on sausage-like, to create a little padding on the strap. Bottle bags, Mark II.

Next day this was evaluated as being better, but the strap kept making its way out of the sock wrapping. Further redesign was needed...

I pulled out my extremely valuable needle (valuable because I had managed to get it through airport checks!). I undid the ties, and re-wrapped the socks lengthways along the strap. I then stitched along the length of the sock to make it into a long tube. This was Mark III (see photo). It worked well for the rest of the holiday, and the bags turned out to be some of the best things we took with us.

Next holidays, I will revise the design to make it less make-shift and more professional looking, while still having a well-padded shoulder strap.

We have since used the bottle bags for day trips to the art gallery, and even just up to the shops. Not just useful for holidays!

Wish list: For the sake of those who don't have sewing skills, if anyone knows of somewhere you can purchase these sort of bottle bags, please let us all know in the comments section! And if you manufacture them yourself, I'd be pleased to evaluate such a product. I *have* seen ones that clip onto belts, but most kids I know don't wear a belt to clip one onto. I think a shoulder bag style bottle bag is much more preferable for kids.

working with LAG regulations

After September 11, some of the more annoying regulations to come into effect are the Liquids, Aerosols and Gels (LAG) regulations. It means that you can only carry a limited amount of liquids etc in your carryon luggage. Containers must be 100ml/grams or less, and you can only have as many as will fit into a transparent 1L (approx 20 x 20cm) ziplockable bag.

This isn't a problem if you're travelling with checked luggage, but we like to travel with carryon only, as its so much easier getting around that way, with kids in tow.

Before our last trip, we tried shampoo bars of soap. We were really hopeful and I tried it for about 2 months, but in the end, I just didn't like the feel it gave my hair. I also didn't like the fact that the conditioner used with it is Apple cider vinegar (which I don't particularly like the smell of) and that would mean that we'd have to take that with us (or buy it) because it too is a liquid, which sort of defeated the purpose...

Today I found an interesting product while searching on the web: shampoo, conditioner, soap, etc that comes as dry sheets, meaning that they aren't liquid anymore and therefore not an issue for flying. With a dry hand (interesting idea in a shower) you get the sheets out of the packet to wash or condition your hair. Great idea.

But what I wanted to know was "does it work?"

At Gridskipper - The Worldwide Travel Blog I found a review of the products. There are fifty sheets in each pack, and apparently you need about 6 each time to get a reasonable lather and for it to feel like it is doing something. They go a bit globby, and as for getting them out of the pack with a dry hand while in the shower... So while they sound great in theory, perhaps they're not in practise.

Yesterday I read a tip about toothpaste dots. The idea of these is that you can use a dehydrator to dry little dots of toothpaste that can be rehydrated when you need to use them.

My mind got to wondering... can you dehydrate shampoo and conditioner in the same way, so that you can use a dried "lump" of shampoo or conditioner for each time you want to wash your hair? That way, you know the product already, because you can just use your normal haircare products. But, I wonder if they reconstitute to work in the same way that they would have before they were dehydrated.

Anyone with a dehydrator tried this? Does it work? Anyone want to try it for me?

Surely some hikers have tried this before, as liquids have more weight than dry stuff and hikers have long wanted to reduce the weight they carry - long before general travelling light became fashionable!