I volunteer with a lovely young people's organisation called the Woodcraft Folk, and this year was lucky enough to be given a place on a bushcraft course run by the inspiringly titled Great Bear.
Learning how to "rough it" in the outdoors has been a challenge to say the least, but I didn't want the opportunity to be wasted, so after a particularly unsuccessful night getting rained on I decided to re-group. It seemed to me the best thing was to start by looking at the skills I was already confident in, and applying them to bushcraft. I doscovered a particularly interesting forum on making your own gear on the website Backpacking Light, and was particularly taken with a thread on making a super light, super compact lantern. There were lots of interesting suggestions but this idea by John Taylorson (thanks John!) caught my imagination.
Basically, one makes a tiny drawstring bag from white ripstop fabric, which you can use for putting things in during the day. Then, for the night time, add a tiny LED torch which is inserted into the bag so that the bag diffuses the light, thus creating a lantern you can actually read from!
Here's a picture to give you the idea:
And here is how it looks in action!
Well it seemed like about time that I finally shared something, so if you fancy having a go at making one yourself, here's the tutorial. I did this with a sewing machine, but I don't see any reason you couldn't do this by hand.
First, you will need:
- Rectangle of white ripstop fabric. (I used a piece 30cm by 10cm)
- LED torch
- cord lock / spring toggle (the black thing in the picture)
- your drawstring - I used paracord but anything will work
- Sewing supplies: needle, thread, pencil, safety pin
Here's a close-up of the torch and toggle in case you're not sure what I meant:
Here goes:
1.
Draw a pencil line as a guide, 3cm from each of the short ends of rectangle of ripstop. Fold in each of the four corners of the fabric at rightangles to the line, to make a mitre, and sew them in place with a line of stitches along the diagonal edge. It should look like this:
And a close-up of the corner:
2.
At each of the short ends of the original rectangle, fold the short end down, forming a lcm seam overlap, and then down again, and sew this seam in pace to form a little tunnel that the cord will eventually go through:
3.
Fold your rectangle in half, short end to short end, with the seam you have just made facing inwards
4.
Sew down either side of the bag:
If you wish, to make the base of the bag square, you can pinch the corners together, bringing the lower portion of the side seam into contact with the centre of the base, and sew in place. Hopefully this picture will make it clearer:
6.
You can then trim odd the little pointy bits which are now surplus, so you are left with something that looks like a noodle box:
7.
Turn it inside out:
8.
This exposes the little tunnel, through which you will insert the string. Attach a safety pin to the end you are threading through to make it easier :
I've never made a tutorial before so please feel free to give feedback or ask questions!
If the method for sewing the corners didn't help, this post by Tibeydo on Craftster explains it much better!
If the method for sewing the corners didn't help, this post by Tibeydo on Craftster explains it much better!
