Deshima

Castlefest by virtue of taking place at the start of August tends to be a very sunny festival. And given that I am pale enough to make a vampire jealous, I inevitably end up being a bit sunburnt no matter how much sunscreen I put on. So I figured it was time to make myself a hat. Tessiel does have a bit of asian influence and I absolutely adore @vincentbriggs 's many leaf inspired creations so I wanted to see if I could make myself a lilypad hat.

First of course, the pattern which I figured out with some math and a big piece cardboard and painting the top to actually look like a lilypad.

Then ironing to seal the paint and adding two and half layers of really stiff interlining so that the hat wouldn't flop.

Before putting together the top and the lining, I already added the top snap buttons and the loops for the cord to the lining so that the stitches wouldn't show on the top and and then I sewed them both together.

Some quilting as well

And the end result !

While I ended up making the sleeping bag first, the reason why I was inspired to make one is because I actually direly needed a new camping mattress and wanted to see if I could make one.

A while ago I discovered TPU coated fabrics thanks to DIY Packraft . TPU coated fabrics are airtight fabrics and can be used to make inflatable objects if properly heat sealed. The guys at DIY Packraft use it to make inflatable rafts but an inflatable mattress is also definitely an option.

Having discovered that, I bought myself a leather pressing iron, which, according to them, is far more practical to use for heatsealing than a normal iron ( I can now concur) and TPU coated fabric from my favorite outdoor guys at extremtextil.de.

First of course was cutting the fabric which involved a lot of measuring once, twice and even thrice ( and I still managed to fudge it up a bit)

Then, of course I used the leftovers to figure out the proper temperature setting of my iron to get a good seal (https://www.diylpackraft.com/proper-heat-sealing-technique/). According to the guys at DIY packraft a good seal is when you have welded the TPU together without burning your fabric which you can test by pulling the seal open again and checking if there is still TPU on both sides or just on one side. If it's the latter you have a good seal. For an even better seal you then add a reinforcement strip wherever you can.

Having figured that out I went on to actually make my mattress which ended up being a three afternoons job.

First was adding all the baffles on the top of the matress

Then attaching them to the bottom of the matress is when I discovered that given that my fabric was only TPU coated on one side I couldn't do what I had done on the top and first add the baffle and then the reinforcement strip but rather the other way around

Then adding the valve which was ironically a bit daunting because suddenly I was making a hole into something I had been very careful to not make holes in so far.

But I succeeded, and then I proceeded to seal the whole shebang closed. I couldn't reinforce that seam the whole way given that I a) had run out of strips and b) had to do that bit blind. But using the same trick as I used to attach the baffles to the bottom of the mattress, I could reinforce the seams somewhat, which hopefully will extend the life of my mattress.

Then, of course, it was time to inflate the baby and see if my madcap, not entirely thought-through project had actually worked. After quickly resealing a couple of spots, I had apparently missed it turn out that my DIY inflatable mattress actually works. Of course, it has yet to survive a true stress test of sleeping a few nights on it, but it works. It won't win any esthetic prizes anytime soon since my seams, especially at the beginning, are rather wonky, but hey! I made my own inflatable mattress. How cool is that!

The second pair of winter socks of the year and probably the last for a while as well since I stalled enormously on this pair and it is now already warm enough I am going to focus on sneaker socks again.

Sometimes you have projects that are entirely whimsical and unnecessary while you have hosts of other projects that still need doing and yet you'll still do them. This project was one of those for me.

For some reason I had decided that I could use a new sleeping bag for when I go to castlefest despite the fact I have a couple already for different temperatures and that no-one would ever see it except for me since it was going to stay in my tent. On top of that I decided to make it a proper leafy quilt just to make it extra complicated.

First of course there was creating the pattern and cutting all the fiddly bits of fabric

Then assembling the quilt top and while not shown ironing the shit out of it to make sure it would lay flat.

Basting the bugger so that I could machine quilt it without too many issues

Quilting!

Aaaand finally adding the zipper and binding