Time to get Vulnerable

It's vulnerable for me to put my feelings out there in the world.  To wear them with my open heart requires a strength that admits I am comfortable with them, no matter how much pain and suffering I may be feeling.  Maybe I will be judged, maybe I will cause more hurt in others or most likely myself.  To own my feelings and put them front and center is the ultimate mastery of being vulnerable and stepping into it all.  No one can take these feelings away from me, I feel them, I think about them... I live for them.  Can I share them, show them?  Being vulnerable, however, is the true test for me to acknowledge how human I am.  With all the Spartan Races I've done, all the thru-hikes I have completed, there is a level of physical and metal strength that helps me navigate the present when the future is so unknown.  Some people see me as a robot of sorts but I am human and I suffer just like everyone else.  Perhaps maybe more because I am in-tune with my feelings and right now I am not hiding them...I am going to show them for the world to see.  If I can do my work around them, maybe it will inspire others to have the strength to be vulnerable.  I want to live a life of vulnerability because I am my most human in that instant.

Maybe one of these days I will get to the core of my current suffering and maybe not.  It doesn't really matter.  What matters is how I show up today.  How will I "receive others" today?  On a level of more vulnerability, how do I start this freaking blog?  What do I write, how will it be received?  I am scared to start a blog and put my mind, body and soul out there.  I am scared to be misinterpreted or unclear in my wording.  I am scared that the flaws in my writing will be exposed and scrutinized.  Dare I say Fuck it?!?!  It's only step 1 of a 1000 step process towards greater self awareness and I choose to step into my fear.  I will expose my vulnerability and let the world interact with me.  My heart is fragile and so am I.  Where the pieces break, the bonds will become stronger.

It's going to be a good year.

The first prototype is complete and was tested on a few occasions.  Most notably, the pack can not hold weight.  I tried putting some weight into it and the shoulder straps ripped off.  The fabric is too weak to hold anything of any substance.  Therefore I was unable to test out any shoulder strap configurations.  The general size and feel of it was favorable.  But adding the weight is where I will really gather some good insight.  I need another prototype.  My sewing job was also pretty terrible while I figured out how to sew.  I just used some crap I made up and now I am learning the right stitches to be using.  It's easy too, just a simple felled seam.  It will make my sewing job so much easier on the next go around.

I decided that I am going to go with a traditional bottom on the pack.  The flat-bottomed piece that is thicker than the rest.  It makes sense from a durability point of view but the bigger factor is the ease of sewing.  My sewing is not that good and doing curved features is not my forte.  It might be simple enough but there is no need to complicate things right now.  I can add that feature in when I really need it.

Back to Work

The first prototype is basically finished.  Well 90%.  The last 10% is a real pain because I need to make the straps longer and come up with some way to attach them to the pack for testing.  I know how they need to be attached in the future but currently i need to test some variations and it's a bit more work.  Truly this is the critical step in my initial design prototyping.

Getting the pack to this point was full of delays and challenges.  I thought I could be here weeks ago but I had difficulties with the sewing machine that took while to figure out.  Apparently you need a special needle for heavier gauge thread, and that made the machine jam up every time I tried starting a stitch.  Plus the tension was all wrong.  That was frustrating but I now know the machine a lot better.  I first sewed the sides to the front and then to the back.  That part was pretty easy although the curved sections proved to be a pain in the butt.  I know I can find a better way to do that.  Something repeatable, because I sit here and design this, I am totally thinking with an eye towards a small scale production.  If this project goes anywhere, that's where it will end up.  The hip belt was a little difficult getting straight with the whole pack sewn together.  Next time, I will sew that onto the back panel first.  That and the shoulder straps.  It is way too much of a pain sewing those on last.  I like what I did with the straps.  I made a 6 inch long piece of fabric that I sewed on to the pack as an upside down T.  The piece extended 2" off the pack and was angled at just the right angle of my shoulders.  I am not sure where the strap should sit yet, closer to the outside shoulder or closer to the neck, but with the 6" length of my attachment piece, I can vary the strap placement pretty easily.  I would also like to do something like that with the bottom of the shoulder strap but there is too much variation in what I would like to try right now.  That is whats throwing me off right now because I have 4 different ways that I want to take this right now.  I'm not real sure how to do comparison testing without make separate prototypes.  I think I just need to make one model and try it out and then vary the position and try it again.  That will give me a lot of additional data to use as I move forward and make another model.  The hip belt is a real small 1" wide strap that I had lying around.  It works but I'm not sure how well it will do with weight in the pack.  Right now with a sleeping bag and a tent rain fly in it to hold its shape, it is extremely comfortable.

Dimensions

The other day, I think it was Wednesday, I fiddled around with finding out some dimensions for my first prototype.  I mainly took the sleeping bag as the design driver since it is the the most important gear piece for me.  I care that it not get too compressed.  I want it to stay as lofty as possible, really, but it needs to be protected.  Therefore it needs the protective stuff sack and the current design is the one I should start with.  I wrapped the tape measure around the current one and figured out the tightest circumference I would want to hold.  I used that to find the diameter of 7".  So that is where I am going to start with the width of the pack.  I also always put the sleeping bag in the bottom of the pack so I just need a curved bottom of the pack.  A nice fit will be nice because the Six Moon was a little too big and I always had to stuff clothes in there to get  a well compacted back pack.  It was frustrating because I never had a well figured out plan with how to stuff things in there all the time and I know that it was awkwardly crushing the sleeping bag or etc...  This will be a nicely welcomed change.  It's simple, it requires zero thought to put together, and I can use the clothes to wrap around all the awkwardly shaped items like the cook pot, the food.  (That reminds me that I need to make a new stuff sack for food.  Something lightweight that fits inside the pack well.)  Is it really only the cook pot?  Heh, beers at some point for sure.  Oh, and the water bag or bottles, maybe the poncho if I use it.  That lends me to believe that I can get away with a much smaller pack.  The only things that take up any real space are the sleeping bag, the down jacket, food, and the cook pot/fuel.  Actually, at some point it will be the bear can but I need to come up with other ideas for that later. I do like the idea of the bear can on the outside of the pack.  That lends me to believe I can make the pack the right size for everything and figure out a way to strap it on.  I can tackle that issue later, though.

Strap Testing

I know that I am going to be trying a lot of different strap ideas or configuration.  Instead of sewing the straps into the seems of the pack, I need to sew in another sheet of fabric that extends out an inch or two from the seem down the side of the pack.  This will allow me to easily get different configurations of the straps without having to actually take apart the side seems.  I'll only need to remove the straps themselves.

That works for the sides down near the base of the pack but where the straps connect to the top of the pack, I am going to just sew them into the back of the pack.  They are easy enough to get at to take apart anyways.

Sewing

No internet for almost a week but finally it was fixed today.  Someone literally drove down the street and caught the cable wire and tore it out of the house.  The funny part is that the AT&T people that came that day when the street was blocked off, didn't even fix it.  They cut the wire and left it like that.  What morons.  The guy that came out today was cool but obviously was pissed at the laziness of others.

I put the sewing machine together today and figured out how to use it.  I tried a few different stitches in hope of finding something that works well.  I had to play around with the tension of the threads(obviously a common activity).  I guess I could say that I have a pretty good idea how this thing works.  Now I need to get some basic dimensions put together and find some fabric to use and get a basic test model built.  I think that using old sheets or equivalent will mimic the type of fabric that I want to use for my initial design, so I think this could be a good place to start to see what happens.  Well that's not true.  I think pillow case material which is a little thicker is probably the better option.  I feel like sheets might be too thin to hold any serious weight.  Than again, I'm not trying to carry any serious weight.  I'm trying to build a semi-working prototype that I can learn how to sew on and get some basic idea what I am doing.  This will ensure a working model essentially that I can build a more functional prototype off of.  It's a learning curve and I need to slow(or quickly)  build all of my skills to get towards the major goal of a functional CDT pack.