I encourage everyone to build something. Making your own gear is a good way to save money, and get a custom built item to your own specification.

Today's post is more my wife's DIY (do it yourself) project, as she did the sewing, so the credit for this one goes to her.

While a tarp is not an all season substitute for a tent, a tarp can be very handy. The item in the photo is a small 5X6 ft, tarp made from water resistant fabric, with tie off loops sewn in for attaching stakes, or 550 cord. The tarp weighs 6 ounces, and gives me another light weight option to add to my bag of tricks.

Your comments are appreciated.

Great thought lizard! My wife sews also so It's a nice add on. I have had her work on gear befor but never thought about a tarp.Is it a shade cover material or like for windbreakers?

The material looks like ripstop material to me, but I do not know the specifics. The Wal-mart label on the bolt of fabric says "unidentified material", ha.

Wal-mart is closing the sewing departments in all their stores, so all that stock is going, going, going...! My theory is too many moms bought their daughters Nintendo's instead sewing machines, thus the market is going away with that skill set, a real shame.

I picked up several bolts of material to experiment with making tarps, stuff sacks, and a bivy. Some of the material I bought is probably "silnylon", as it looks pretty slick, but again the labels says unidentified material. When I get a chance I will set the tarp up and hose it down to check whether it is very water resistant.

I would like to get a bivy out of these DIY experiments, buying a high-tech, mil-surplus bivy is not cheap. In my area a bivy would be very helpful to keep out uninvited visitors, scorpions, snakes, ticks and spiders. Making a minimalist shelter that weighs ounces rather than pounds would be a real plus.

Great idea! I just told my wife to keep an eye out for material like this.

If you're good enough with the sewing machine to sew on zippers, making zippered pouches is also a great way to save money. There used to be a guy that sold these things, made from remnants of the gun cases that he made. Sold them for a buck. Now, they're $6 because they were so popular.