Learn to sew your own outdoor gear
learnmyog.com
learnmyog.com
This is one of those projects that's been itching away at the back of my mind, but always on the backburner. Having a starting point will be a great help getting things rolling.
How much did it cost you, all in? And how do you find a laser for cutting some of the more technical fabrics? (Specifically thinking of some of the ultralightweight fabrics the MYOG community loves to nerd out on.)
I disassembled an old 3D printer for the stepper motors and control board. But I would say it probably costs in the neighborhood of $300-$350 to build from scratch. I spent under $200 since I had a lot of parts already.
I've not tried cutting those technical fabrics! I would suspect it works fine. I am mostly making street clothing with it. I've cut some medium weight polyester with no problem, but haven't tried super light stuff. The laser power is adjustable so I suspect it will work fine.
Also I have a full config file for the 3d printer control board. If you get the thing built PLEASE ask me for that in a github issue as I do really need to add it to this repo.
Is there any particular reason why you chose that specific laser model? I'm not very knowledgeable of the technical aspects of lasers/laser cutting, but would love to learn more.
synthetic fibers > plant fibers > animal fibers
I will also guess that more shiny is more bad.
Edit: while on the topic of animal fibers, one fabric that gets way too little love in the outdoors community is wadmal. If you are doing anything that has intervals of high and low activity and you tend to sweat, it beats any GoreTex (incl. Pro versions) hands down for keeping you dry. Unless you are out in heavy rain for prolonged periods, in which case the only thing that keeps you dry is the thick PVC stuff that fishermen use.
Here's a more definitive list:
Thank you!
I do sometimes have stuck stepper motors. That leads to messed up cuts and it’s one reason I want other people to reproduce the design and add their own tweaks. It generally works, but I would like to see the sticking of the Y axis improved.
This Solar LED umbrella could be a different fabric than cotton.
Just picked up a few tarps with a bunch of loops all around the sides and through the center for guidelines.
TIL hemp is antimicrobial and it can be mixed with {rayon,}.
Please consider throwing up your files on github entirely. OnShape has a login-wall, even if it has free account options. GitHub even supports native STL viewing!
I still had a spool of high stiffness line that I bought back when people were experimenting with that! It was one of the early delta printer variants, like the Kossel or similar that I first saw that working. It took a little while to prototype the spool winding system but in the end it works really nicely! Its just so light and cheap, I love it.
I should throw the STL files up. It was a big rush to get the project finished and I had a lot of other stuff to focus on. And I do want to encourage people to dig in to the design and make forks with their changes. But it does work pretty well as is, so STLs would be helpful. I also accept pull requests! I am super busy and pleasure projects like this are so hard to fully document.
I appreciate the kind words!
In a university setting, I would guess that a completely open system like this would only be permitted if interlocks guaranteed that the laser head was unpowered unless everyone was out of the (windowless) room.
The space-saving/rug trick is awesome.
Also you can make the gantry runners arbitrarily wide, at the loss of some Y axis travel. But you can also make the Y axis arbitrarily long. So if you have space to extend things, you could make the gantry runners wider to give it even more stability against tipping. (A problem I have so far never observed)
The laser itself has a 5mm focal distance and the housing is rectangular with something like a 40mm square footprint. This means that you can’t directly see the spot it creates, and this seems to help a lot. It’s mechanically very solid so I don’t expect it to tip over. It is also poorly columnated such that it diverges pretty quickly when not pointed at a target.
All this works fine for me at home, but I suspect a university would need more safety structure around it.
The short focal length helps, but you're starting with a lot of power. Careful with specular reflections, especially off of concave objects that might refocus the beam.
The hard part with these things are that the beams are invisible and the damage (especially at near-visible wavelengths) can be instant without a lot of power.
While on the topic, my girlfriend recently showed me this site: https://freesewing.org . It's fully open source and all the patterns are actually parametric, meaning you can customize the patterns to exact body measurements. Their custom JS framework for designing patters as well as the rest of the platform is MIT licensed [0] and the patterns are all Creative Commons.
Yeah, this page is great example for all those people who despise the role of marketing. The wording, info structure, photos a d so long are making it really appealing. Awesome execution.
Of course I'm just nitpicking, because I love everything about people who build such things. If you're working hard to be as nice as feasible, it's really hard not to advertise it.
So if we're putting a lot of emphasis on how nice we try to play, that's because we have that initial distrust to overcome.
Your criticism is valid, I'm merely trying to clarifying why we are putting the communal aspects front and center.
If you have suggestions for how we could improve, please share them
Joost -- FreeSewing maintainer
The illustrations are tops, too - love that aspect.
Thank you so much for the shout-out
Joost - FreeSewing maintainer
That being said, it's a fair point. Most of the sewing world is still rather strictly segregated between menswear and womenswear. We try to remove that distinction and just deal with bodies, but it's an ongoing journey. We're not there yet, but we'll keep at it.
Next to programming, it's probably one of the most helpful things I learned in school.
"Home Economics", was a thing at my school too, then we did sewing again in scouts and cadets, as the GP says make-and-mend is considered an essential survival skill. Thing is, I'm rubbish at it and usually stab my finger with a needle, but to this day I still pack a mini sew-kit wherever I travel.
Even if I'm rubbish at it and take forever to thread a needle, I've still made field repairs to gear while traveling that were a lot better than having no repair at all.
My mom taught me the stuff kids were learning in HomeEc classes.
I remember my mum saying "if you're going to program you better learn to type" - that was when I was going into gr 10. I didn't always follow her advice but I did take the typing class.
They typing class I took was a proper typing class though, so much more learning than just where the keys are located. Old Skool stuff too like double spaces at the end of sentence puntucation. How to set up tabs. How to format letters. Just to completely date myself, I was taught PASCAL!
My grandmother was a girl during WWI, just married before WWII (with my grandfather going to fight in 39), and of course she saw Korea, Vietnam, the cold war, etc.
When I was young, maybe 4, I remeber her teaching me to sew. It is one of my earliest memories of her, along with her saying "hay is for horses!", every time I said "hey grandma" to her.
I recall asking her why, and she became very soleoum, and said that I had to learn how to fix my own socks, that no one would do it for me, in a trench, during a war.
Can't say I blame her thinking, with it being the height of the cold war, the Cuban missile crisis just over, and her whole life and mind filled with the knowledge war.
Yes, soldiers need to know how to sew.
Thank you for this lovely snippet.
https://www.army.mil/article/146104/clothing_repair_taught_f...
So in 2015 I've bought an old (as in 70 years old) Singer 201-1 which only* sew straight stitch, but it does so beautifully, is easy to learn, to maintain and should probably outlast me, but by the time it has arrived I've been off to a long hike, and when I returned I told myself I was too busy to find the time (and "courage") to get started learning to use a sewing machine.
Then in 2020, an awful need to procrastinate over work lead me to finally learn how to thread it, the to take it apart for cleaning/oiling and finally I managed to half ass a face mask (and few other items including garments I ended up using on long-ish distance trails).
I then went back to BPL's MYOG⁽¹⁾ forum and r/myog ⁽²⁾, both super useful resources that have been helping gear makers for many years. I think it was on r/myog that I learned of Tim's learnmyong.com, which has since then grew into one of the best resources for (hiking gear related) patterns and educational videos (some patters are free, others can be purchased, all the ones that I've tried are of excellent quality IMO). I've also had good results with Green Pepper patterns.
* Zig zag as well as button-hole attachments do exist though (and they work surprisingly well)
⁽¹⁾ https://backpackinglight.com/forums/forum/gear/make-your-own...
I've found that the heavier your fabric is the less likely it is that you'll be satisfied with the zigzag attachment. In particular, if you're trying to bar tack reinforcement points in gear, you might have a hard time.
The buttonhole attachment, on the other hand, covers the feed dogs in the bed of the machine, and the buttonholer handles all of the movements of the fabric on its own. I've had fairly good luck with it. If you're only doing bar tacks, you can set it up to make a "button hole" with the sides overlapping, and it does a pretty good job.
I've sewn my own lightweight tent, and I've found that you really don't need a zigzag for that (assuming a pattern that doesn't require one, obviously). Packs and duffel bags, on the other hand have a lot more stress on the points where the straps attach to the bag, and you'll likely want to be reinforce those points with bar tacking.
Tent is probably the most dreadful project I have on my list, I followed some very talented MYOG hobbyist (@leahikes) as she was designing sewing (and then resewing) her DCF tent (which she used on the A.T. this year) and getting all the angles right for a good pitch seems an epic effort. Very impressive that you managed to do that!
I made my own pattern and just kind of went with it after making a 1/2 scale prototype. It pitched well enough and kept me mostly dry on the AT in 2010.
If you're dreading the project, I'd encourage you to find the nearest small child and ask them to draw you a tent. Then go make what they drew. That's pretty much what I did [0]. If you keep it down to minimum viable tent, it's really not too bad. Just practice the zipper on scrap first if you've never sewn one before :-D
Honestly, clothing intimidates me more!
[0] https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ebd2/ebd2.github.io/master...
Nowadays I'm mostly a flat-tarp user. I use an HMG 10' x 8' tarp which I used with some success (and some failure) on the HRP and GR54. Since I live in Israel, hiking locally means dry but often windy or humid (but not rainy) conditions, and for that purpose, I hope to be able to downsize to a 5' x 7' tarp, which I think I'll try my hands at once the hiking season begins here.
I think that unlike everyday garments (some) hiking garments can be very forgiving. An example is a SilPoly rain pants I made last year for a fall GR54 hike. It's not pretty and I wouldn't use on a trail like the A.T for fear of frying myself, but it worked perfectly to keep me warm in stormy days.
this is how tech descriptions should sound. Not just hardware appliances, but also pure software. Imagine e.g. a web service with such properties.
(Ivan Illich calls such 'convival tools')
I've made a couple of climbing packs specifically tailored to my size and requirements that have worked out great. (I've had multiple people ask me what brand it is and where could they could buy one!)
What's been really cool is learning about all of the great materials available online now. If you were limited to your local fabric store you would be basically stuck as there is a horrible selection of technical fabrics. With places like Ripstop by the Roll you can have access to state-of-the-art fabrics, fittings, etc. that are as good at (or even better than) what you can find in high-end commercial gear.
One example is UHMwPE fiber (aka Dyneema.) This fiber is dramatically stronger, lighter, and cut resistant than nylon. You can now get fabrics made from the stuff (Challenge Ultra) but the price means it's rarely seen in commercial designs. For me, if I'm going to spend several hours making a pack, the extra $30 in raw materials is irrelevant and you can get an awesome final result.
Meanwhile here I am trying to gather courage to hand-fix holes in the accumulated twenty pairs of socks, and then graduate to the more involved things. Bit of a nuisance that every Youtube video on how to fix this kind of holes just says that darning is the answer. Come on, I know how darning is gonna turn out with my skills—surely there's a crappier but simpler alternative.
It's going to suck super bad, and you are going to be super slow. And after a couple of socks it will be easy. The learning curve is a speed bump. Easy to get over when you move forward.
The problem is, putting a patch onto every hole is questionable aesthetically, practically and economically. But alas, even with straight-line rips, Youtube's answer outside of patches seems to be darning—and I understand the logic behind that solution, but I don't accept it as the final one.
There's also one guy (at least) who stitches such rips in one pass without darning and with minimal bunching-up, but he somehow seems to put the thread inside the fabric, which so far is like magic to me.
Function is more important than form outdoors, so compared to say your work clothes it's ok if stitching is messy or fabric doesn't match.
Repairs are an easier way to get started than creating something from scratch, and outdoor stuff breaks. I've fixed and patched lots of holes, replaced a few zippers. Most recently mended the strap on my hiking pole that a critter chewed through overnight.
Gear modification is another ease into sewing. Old gear can be modernised, features can be copied from friends' gear, and gear can be customised to your specific needs. I've added ice axe loops and hip pockets to a pack, made a frame bag the exact size of my mountain bike, added elastic to a drawstring bag that wasn't cinching properly.
Jokes aside, this is great. I've made some of my own stuff. It's really liberating to make equipment that is exactly what you want. A backpacking buddy made an entire internal-frame backpack. I hope to work up to that level with time!
Of course you had to pay some kick back to a manager or more likely give him a case of samogon.
Elite Firefighters Have a Secret Skill: One of rookie smoke jumpers’ first lessons—after leaping from a plane and packing a parachute—is learning how to sew.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/10/smokejum...
Smokejumper Visitor Center: Missoula, MT
https://thegoodthebadandtherv.com/2017/07/01/smokejumper-vis...
The Life of a Smokejumper: Wait. Jump. Fight. Repeat
https://www.filson.com/blog/field-notes/usfs-life-of-a-smoke...
My ideal would be a physical store somewhere in Melbourne so I could see and feel the fabrics before buying (high shipping costs makes getting samples an expensive business!), but I doubt there are any physical stores for this kind of thing. I would like to make a bag to fill the large gap behind/under the seat on my recumbent tricycle. I tried going into a Spotlight a while back and asking about waterproof fabrics, but they didn’t have anything along those lines at all.
I don't have any recommendations for physical stores though.
I started making my own hiking gear years ago and it has been fun passion of mine. Cost aside, the biggest benefit is developing a comfort in modifying and fixing existing gear and eventually learning to make it look good. I started with the rayway quilt for a prairie wintercamping overbag but have since taken a UL DIY tarp tent + bug shelter, various quilts/bags, ponchos, gaiters, and various bags on longer back country trips. I've replaced a fly for an old but durable tent and adjusted the skin of a folding kayak (was not as happy with the cosmetic result on that one). It's a bit addictive. Zippers are hard to get right but once you've done this it's easy to go to scrubs or dresses. My latest purchase is a speedy stitcher awl for other projects.
If you are into this the other big category to try out is DIY dehydrated meal prep. Last weeklong trip I intentionally overpacked food to share and split and everyone wanted some of my food after a couple days on that mountain house (relative) crap. It ends up being way cheaper, tastier, and probably healthier. Leading up to a trip I just cook extra and try to be more vegeterian for dinner. Those portions of rice, bean/lentil dishes, vegeterian curries all get thrown onto some parchment paper in a rack (previously spiral) dehydrator, ziplocked, and then frozen until the trip. Switch it up with different seasoning and sides, e.g. rehydrate a side of sauerkraut, pickled beets, or some jerkey. Just word to the wise chopped potatos rehydrate slowly & poorly: easier to buy those cartoons of shredded dehydrated potato from costco. I'll buy their cooked canned chicken to dehydrate too. Also dehydrated 1/2cm wide banana slices (no soaking/additives) are my favourite snack now.
Motivation was 2-fold - obviously save some money, but also to know how to repair stuff once things start degrading, and they for sure will, one after another.
Sounds romantic and the right things, but as somebody who knows exactly what I want to do with my life and how to get there, its just another meh no thank you for me. One has limited free time in this life, the older usually the less, and I really don't mind shelling out few bucks to equipment from ie Decathlon (for US - good quality and cheap outdoor stuff, you really don't need overpriced Arc'teryx things) and spend free time actually using it out there. You only need few items to be proper high quality for not ruining the trip, ie shoes, backpack and maybe jacket for colder times. And of course technical stuff for ie climbing or alpinism but thats another topic.
Saving tons of hours on frustration on understanding how things shouldn't be done. That is coming from person whose mom used sewing machine quite a lot, grandma was making various clothing for all their grandchildren etc.
That food preparation part is actually more interesting since you control how much chemical crap goes into it (well, obviously apart from actual ingredients for it... but I presume since you invest so much time into this you go for ie free range bio meat and similar quality of the rest). But again - I can just pop extra dollar or two per dry meal for bio variant of prepared meals, they taste wonderfully after long hard day anyway, especially if one is properly hungry. Now if somebody would come up with dried usable beer that would be another story...
Interesting recommendation, I haven't heard of them. I checked out their MTB shorts, and this model[0] is basically identical to a pair I've bought on Amazon from various "Chinese" retailers of different names (like ARSUXEO), which gives me pause due to the massive inconsistency in quality from pair to pair.
Do you know if Decathlon actually takes an active role in the production, or are they just buying bulk e.g. from Alibaba? Their website doesn't really say much and what they do say just feels kind of generic.
[0] https://www.decathlon.com/products/mountain-bike-shorts-900-...
If someone is copying someone else, it's those Chinese companies copying Decathlon IMO.
I got my first Decathlon piece last year, Forclaz 100 puffy for 80$, and so far so good.
For some reason outdoor gear in the US seems to go from low quality Walmart stuff straight to high end more boutique brands, skipping a "high volume, durable quality, no need for ultra-technical specs" solid affordability zone that Decathlon seems to operate in.
As mentioned in the other comment, the closest thing I can think of is REI, but with significantly cheaper options.
They have dirt cheap fishing gear kids love, also just generic kids clothing is pretty ok.
Their winter ski stuff is also good(clothing, never tried actual skis or boots). It is not high end, meaning heavy not as warm etc but for the price it is great, for riding a lift whole day great deal.
Make sure to check sizing. It is kind "interesting" I can wear medium size ski bibs(686, Burton etc), Decathlon large I could not squeeze into. They were super nice bibs too, too bad they did not have XL or I would have bought them
They do their own designs - not generic Amazon/Ebay stuff.
There's a hiker on Ebay who showed their design studio which is co-located with one of their major stores in France. That way the designers can go down to the store and ask a customer how a new design would work for them.
You touch on time being short as we get older. I completely agree but in a more general sense I think it is important to consider what hobbies one enjoys, who we spend time doing them with, and what refuels us at the end of the day.
I find if I start to put a value on my personal time that equates my professional rate (physician, but not a high end specialty) nothing starts to make economic sense short of working really, really hard to avoid ever getting divorced.
Do I garden with my wife, forage for mushrooms hiking, help out on a buddy's hobby farm for credit, or do I just work more and buy it after. Some stuff really doesn't make sense: I run a zfs nas, vps for encrypted offsite backup, self host services etc at some cost + the evening thing.
A lot of this I started doing when I was a broke student that wanted to get into CS but it stuck as income changed due to enjoying it and a firm belief that the food industry and cloud offerings don't have my interests in mind.
I haven't done the organic meat thing. It is a good thought! I pressure can broth from pork bones and culled laying hens that don't see antibiotics or exogenous hormones. I think next time I'll save the meat for this purpose!
To your last point: our rule of thumb is a bottle of scotch/bourbon per 2 people per 4 nights. :)
In particular DCF (Dyneema Composite Fabric) is a miracle of modern material science. Dyneema is stronger than Kevlar and is famous for allegedly breaking the anchor cable testing machine when being strain tested for use for mooring cargo ships.
But it's really interesting for these types of applications because it is super abrasion resistant (perfect for backpacking gear) so you can make super light, super tough things from it.
Everytime similar discussions come up on HN someone links to https://ripstopbytheroll.com/ so I'll just do that now.
Now that I realize I can fabricate one-off outdoor gear, I don't have an excuse not to design this.
https://learnmyog.com/zerotohero.html#tools
(I simply guessed at what features I'd need, and then went with a non-bottom-end Singer, on the guess that I'd be less likely to have headaches for reasons other than my lack of sewing experience.)
- For starters, the "zero to hero" path outlined does not seem to bring me all the way to customizing and then hopefully designing my own gear (they don't have a pattern for a messenger bag as far as I can see). I can see a set of pre-made designs that I would need to buy (at prices that seem steep to me, when compared to actual off-the-shelf non-DIY products), but I'm not sure what I'll learn from them and how far it will get me (even if I were ready to invest) if what I'm interested is doing what would be actually my own gear (and not just reproductions of pre-made designs).
- In the materials page I don't seem to see an entry for "Cordura", although I noticed they mentioned using "Cordura" in at least one of the designs (a backpack). That seems internally inconsistent, and especially as someone who'd be learning from scratch, I know nothing at all, so need explanations for everything. This immediately makes me worried what other places in the website may have other knowledge holes I wouldn't be able to overcome. A forum/community could possibly help me ask around when I'm struggling, but I don't seem to see one mentioned.
- I found a list of webbing methods, but molle/pals seems not there, which is surprising to me again.
Not being from the US, does anyone know of an online resource/community where I could try and learn enough to design my own messenger bag with molle/pals webbing and sew it from Cordura?
Edit: I've done this by hand sewing hard points onto a canvas bag. Ymmv with a machine or other material
I have zero experience in designing patterns, but as for the tools, I've heard great things about Valentina, an open source tool that has been also forked as Seamly2D (last time I checked Seamly2D seemed less maintained but that's all know).
As to the cost, I just checked to make sure he didn't change that some* patterns are free. The newer ones have for a pretty typical price for sewing patters as far as I can tell.
* The free patterns are for fanny pack, running belt, tote bag, stem bag as well as the stuff sacks and the zip pouch
This site has an entire page on technical fabrics, which explains their properties with sufficient detail to continue more in depth research elsewhere if needed.
If you can’t determine how the Cordura you have in mind is different from the described samples, how do you know it’s the best fabric for your bag?
Seems like you’re imposing requirements fora solution without understanding the problem space.
Your approach is like choosing a specific microcontroller you want to use before understanding embedded systems fundamentals. Or choosing a JS framework and being upset an “intro to frontend” tutorial isn’t centered around that specific tool.
Notably, I can totally understand a person that knows absolutely nothing about programming could come to me with a question of: "How do I create a website from scratch that would use React?" I would not start by answering them with: "Did you even try googling up what React is?", because I'm quite sure they wouldn't understand the explanation as presented on the internet. I would love to instead explain why they don't need to worry about React yet, and to show them a quick outline of a progression to get there, respecting that the decision to chose React or not is theirs in the end. And also tell them of some alternatives that they might want to explore instead of React at some point, and why.
Keeping with your example, would also mention every other JS framework that exists? Because that’s a futile effort that will always be outdated.
And their Facebook group.
It is oriented around starting beginners on making their own packs. They have a good shoulder bag pattern that would be a good place to start if your goal is a messenger bag.
Cool to know there are templates for other stuff out there.
Getting outdoor fabrics is sort of tough without going online - sewing in general is underrated
The bottom section is duck canvas and the top section just ripstop nylon. They’re basically just a baggy sleeping bag with no insulation and can close however - zipper, cinch string etc
Have you ever thought to build your own piece of furniture, gone to Home Depot for the parts, and come out thinking you could have just bought one pre-made for about the same cost? Unless you have specialized needs and some free time, it usually isn’t worth it.
Also, I don’t even know how much my mom spends on sewing stuff but judging by how much my stepdad complains I’m guessing quite a bit. But she enjoys it and that’s all that really matters.
My problem is that, simply, once you make your bag...then what?
I have casual interest in a lot of "make-y" stuff, but reality then clouds up the sun.
Sure, it would be neat to make, say, cabinets. But how many cabinets can I actually use? And tooling up to make a rolling cabinet with some drawers, that is a SINGLE cabinet, it all starts to get quite excessive.
Some places have things like carpentry clubs, etc., but they're fraught with liability issues. I don't know of a sewing club that would have a machine strong enough to sew a cordura bag that one can borrow.
Simply, the barrier to entry for a utility piece of kit is quite high. I don't think my friends want a bunch cabinets, or backpacks, or leather wallets, turned pens, etc. for Christmas gifts the next 10 years.
Indeed you have to enjoy the journey and the doing more so than the outcomes, but, even still, it's definitely a step up to get going.
At least with my computer musings, the garage and land fill doesn't fill up with borderline and failed attempts, or even the successes. Visions of Mel Gibson tossing his broken rocking chair into the corner of other failed rocking chairs in the movie 'The Patriot'.
To get rid of the stuff I make, I just give it to other people. Usually it helps if they're things people actually ask for, like custom purses, bags, and cute dinosaur figures. I only produce a few items a year so no one's getting overwhelmed with stuff. As for waste, you just minimize it and learn how to fix, undo, or hide your mistakes.
Repairs (crotch of my jeans x 10, broken strap on backpack)
Functional modifications (add pocket to jacket, add attachment points to a bag so I can mount it on my bike rack, lined a jacket with some scrap wool material to make it warmer)
Aesthetic modifications - what got me into it in the first place (slim shirts, taper pants, hem pants, replace buttons)
Small custom makes - mostly leather (my wallet, passport holder, kindle slip cover, tote bag)
Large (involved) custom makes - bicycle frame bag, hammock underquilt
The DWR coatings are something I'd like to be more informed about. Does anyone have good links to discussions of options with pros and cons, environmental impacts, etc?
https://sectionhiker.com/dcf-vs-x-pac-for-ultralight-backpac... is X-Pac vs DCF.
https://thetrek.co/ecopak-revolutionising-thru-hiking-packs-... concentrates on the environmental impacts, mostly regarding their EcoPak material which is a competitor to x-pack and DCF.
DWR on outer clothing layers such as shell works in tandem with inner PU or PTFE membrane that has pores ranging that are large enough to allow water vapor out but small enough to block non vaporized water.
So why do we need the DWR layer at all?
I haven't mention it so far, but this combination of DWR layer + Membrane is the basic setup for WP/B (Water Proof Breathable) garments, but the membrane layer by itself in most case should provide the most breathability and water protection, however it's such a flimsy layer that it'll be anything but durable. That's one reason why we need at least an external protection layer. Okay, but why should it be DWR? Imagine that we had a cotton layer on the outside. why, it could provide good protection to the membrane and could wick vapors too. The problem of course starts when the outside becomes wet, either by rain or by over sweating. Then the membrane could be as good as it can get, starts to buffer vapor, that vapor soon accumulate as sweat and everything breaks. The idea with DWR is to remove the "queue" of vapor as efficiently as possible - let it bead and drop, making room for more vapor to go out.
That sounds great, however, DWR finishes break down, mostly due to abrasion and if not renewed (and DWR renewal only works to some degree), it end up being regular waterproof shell at best. Why do I say "at best"? because the problems do not end here — the membrane itself, in this setup, comes in direct contact with your body, it absorbs fats, salts, sun screen and who knows what, which clogs it, and over time, if not cleaned properly, makes gradually less effective in transferring vapor outside. What's more, the fine membrane structure over time, not only get clogged but will lose some of its structural integrity due to abrasion and will allow water in.
So, like in that Simpsons episode, we had lizards, then we got snakes to eat them, so now the gorillas that eat the snakes* are for example, internal layer that sandwiches the membrane and protects it. That comes at some breathability cost and weight.
Another solution which is simpler than WP/B is to embrace completely waterproof shell with good ventilation, depending on the kind of activity but I find that completely waterproof (non-breathable) fabric with pit zips works great in variety of situations. Some people would prefer a poncho which also provide excellent ventilation (but is less suitable for high exposure or bushwhaking).
* And then just simply freeze to death when winter comes, problem solved, except that there are other inherent problems with the premise of WP/B (Andrew Skurka has a great take on it in his book)
Going through Gutermann's catalog might be a good starting point though.
* Since I don't have hands-on experience with quilting, I resort to belief
Or you know, just buy one, cry once and get a Yetti.
I'd also like others to be able to do the same, so I can get their modified versions. Usually, someone else will solve my problem.
I don't mind $20, but I do mind needing to pay $20. There are lots of companies who make great patterns. I'm not sure what makes this any different.