Make an Ultralight Chest Pouch (£4 / 68g)

After the success of the Easy-Sew Chest Pouch. I decided to make an ultralight version of it. The total weight of the ultralight version is just 67g and HALF of that weight is the 25mm QR buckles that I used!!!!

The Ultralight pouch also includes a pocket for my wallet and separate pockets for a compass and a GPS. I like carrying things in the same place all the time and I wanted all the heavy things to hang centrally and not flop around.

I've contoured this pouch so that it naturally hangs with the weight at the bottom and in the centre.

It's about 5L in size. I was going to add a couple of bottle carriers to it but I haven't done that yet.

Materials

• 20cm lightweight zip
• 50cm 15mm webbing + 15mm buckle (optional)
• 30cm 25mm webbing
• SilNylon / 2oz / 4oz PU Nylon (25cm off the end of a roll is ample)
• 2x 25mm QR buckles (detachable/retachable ones from Oddities). These have a special slit cut into them so that they can be slipped around webbing already on a pack.

Pattern

The pattern is very simple - a square with the corners cut off. It's been shaped so that weight naturally falls into the centre-bottom helping to keep it balanced.

Construction

These instructions include the pockets that I've made. The pockets have been made using different colours of scrap fabric so that I can see them. If you are going to add pockets it makes sense to do them during construction - it's more difficult after.

1. Cut a front and back panel according to the above pattern. I used 4oz PU-coated nylon for the back panel and 2oz for the front panel.

2. Cut a front pocket panel using the blue line on the pattern as the top line for the pocket.

3. Cut a 19x15cm panel for the inner wallet pocket.

4. Cut a 10x17cm panel for the compass pocket. This is enough for a Silva Type 4.

5. Cut a 15x15cm panel for a GPS pouch. Use your own GPS as a guide or skip this step.

6. Make a folded-hem or rolled-hem on the top-most pocket edge.

7. Sew the Compass pocket onto the INSIDE of the pocket as a flat patch pocket.

8. Sew the GPS pocket OVER THE TOP of the compass pocket. The pocket is sewn as a bullfrog pocket - it naturally balloons out and is gathered at the bottom. Use your GPS for guidance. It has to fit comfortably and be easy to get in and out.

You can see the two seam-lines on the top photo.

The idea of fitting the pockets this way around is to minimise the amount of stitching on the front panel into the main compartment.

8. Sew the wallet pocket onto the INSIDE of the back panel. It is another patch pocket. It should be sewn about 2cm below the top edge.

9. Cut two 5cm strips of fabric that are the same length as your zip. You are going to sew the zip into this fabric to create a panel containing a zip. This is the easiest way to fit a zip.

Take a close look at the above picture. The zip has been sewn in 'upside down' and then the fabric is folded back and restitched to make it look like this. I've used a zipper foot which sits on the zip and allows a nice neat line of stitching.

10. Cut two strips of fabric for the side-panels. Each piece is approx 35cm long and expands in width from 5cm to 8cm.

11. Sew the narrow end of each strip over the end of each side of the zip. Sew with right sides of fabric together - completely covering the zip and then fold back and sew again to create a seam that looks like this:

Note: It's unlikely that the 5cm width exactly matches the width of the panels with the zip in. IT doesn't matter. Constructing the main body will hide all of this.

12. Sew a 15cm piece of 15mm webbing approx. 3cm above the pocket line. It should be bar-tacked at 1.5" intervals (this makes it compatible with MOLLE kit). This gives you a nice little row of tie-on points for things like Map, Compass and GPS.

13. Pin 3 8cm loops of 15mm webbing to the rear panel. The loops should be pinned on the right side of the fabric but pointing inwards rather than outwards. They will be pointing the right way when the seam is finished. One loop is placed at each top corner and one at the bottom centre.

If you wish you could just sew webbing straps on instead. Mine was done like this so that I could re-use the buckles that I already had and/or place the pouch somewhere else.

14. Sew the side panels to the rear panel: Align the zip panel with the the top edge of the rear panel with the right sides of fabric together - you have to sew the pack inside-out!

Starting from the centre of the zip sew round the edge of the rear panel with a 0.5cm seam allowance. You will need to go slow around the corners and gather/coerce the side-panels to chase the line of the rear panel. There will be too much fabric at the bottom by the lowest loop. Let it hang there for now - just machine over one part of the bottom loop.

Check that you have sewed through all the loops and into the seams and then put another line of stitching through them in the seam allowance.

You should now have a little fabric bowl with the outside of the rear panel on the inside.

Cut and sew the two pieces of side-panels where they meet at the bottom to create a continuous rim.

15. Unzip the zip. This will make life a lot easier later....

16. Place the front-panel onto the little fabric bowl that you have constructed with the panel facing inwards - so the whole pouch is effectively inside out.

17. Starting at the centre of the zip sew the seam to the base of the pouch. Do each side separately - this helps to even out the fabric tension/alignment. Try and ensure that as you do it the front and back panels appear to be aligning OK. If you want to be a pro about it then put chalk marks on the side panels and the front-back panels at each corner and certainly top and bottom centre. You can then just work to ensure that all the chalk marks line up.

18. Turn the pouch right-side out through the unzipped openning :-)

19. Sew two straps as shown here by sewing 20cm of para cord onto 13cm of 25 mm webbing.

This buckle is secured by using two rows of bar-tacks. The para-cord has been folded to form a loop and then the open ends fo the loop have been bar-tacked onto the webbing (with the tacks running in-line with the cord and then the webbing has been folded over the cord and stitched through a few times to tidy it up. [There is a knot in my cord to reduce the length]

The paracord loops can be fed through the rabbit-ear loops on the pack to create a lanyard-style of attachment. The slit cut into the buckle allows the buckle to be slipped through the 25mm webbing that is attached to most modern packs.

20. Sew a buckle onto the remaining 15mm webbing to create a small strap. Feed this strap through the lower loop on the pouch. You could also use a bit of para-cord instead...

Field Testing

This pouch went with me on my last trip. It worked very well and has replaced the heavier prototype that I made.

For my first major hike this year I might well add water-bottle pockets onto the side so that I can carry 2x skinny 500ml drinks botles. The only real reason for doing this is to add a little dense weight to the pouch to even up the weight of the backpack.