Replacing lost gear

Hello, everyone.

I believe it was mentioned that I lost the stuff sack for the rain poncho while hiking into Coimbra, Portugal. (It was the only off-and-on rainy day of the entire trip. And at some point the rain returned while we were going up and down hilly streets in the suburb south of the city. I shoved the stuff sack into a pocket. Mistake. Never saw it again.)

Random plastic grocery sacks can only work just so well at containing the billows and bumps of a yard or more of taffeta.

When we got home it was time to figure out a new container for the poncho.

Components, partially constructed. Cylinder is inside out.

 There was some of the orange trilobal nylon lying around from earlier experimenting. I cut a rectangle big enough to go around a 4 1/2" diameter dish and traced the dish to produce the circle for the bottom. Then cut the remainder of the orange fabric into bias strips and sewed them into a long pieced bias strip. Sewed that into a rouleau tube--self-filled tubing, which was not cooperative when it came time to turn it right side out--for the drawstring. Made a cylinder of the rectangle and that's the point at which this picture was taken.

It's hard to see, but the selvages of the side seam were zigzagged and sewn down. The ends of the cylinder ran through the serger. There is a break in the side seam where one edge is folded down--that's the access point for the tube.

The circle was sewn to the bottom of the cylinder (many, many pins) and that seam allowance was sewn down for stability.

The rouleau was threaded through the tube and a knot and a couple of decorative beads added. This was the point at which I realized that (1) I needed a cord lock and (2) there are none in the house. Oops.

The poncho is stuffed inside the bag in the bottom photo and the opening is mostly closed by a slip knot in the cord.  I think it will do--the poncho isn't the kind of tiny thing that can worm itself out that opening after all.

New stuff sack.