Well, well, well... I am proud of this one, because I used three pieces of fabric I had in my stash with no purpose and ended up in a gorgeous parka that I longed for years.
Some years ago, I bought a TheNorhtFace tri-climate parka, but after some wear, I ended up selling it, because it was too big on me, and it was made of down, which provokes allergies, and respiratory issues. Since then, I have been wanting to replace it with a memade one, but not buying anything polyester as a rule, this was a tough one... how can we make waterproof clothes that are not made of plastic?
Oilskin, of course! I bought some of it to make Carlos's summer rain jacket, from Merchant and Mills. I ordered three different pieces of fabric, because I did not know which one would be best. I used the thinnest for Carlos' jacket, and kept the medium and the thick one for future projects.
Then, one day I had this inspiration of using the medium one to make a raincoat, and using some insulating fabric I kept in my stash for more than ten years as the inner layer, attached to the raincoat with zippers all along the front. Thus, I had a warm jacket, a long summer raincoat and a winter parka for very cold weather.
I used a Burdastyle pattern of a thick quilted anorak, but I did not keep it because it was too big a size ad I had to perform too many modifications, taking fabric off every seam, and then giving some, changing the armscyes, adding a hood and adapting the neck cut to accommodate it, etc. At the end of the process I had to undo these two, neck cut and hood, because I had made it too high, and it did not work.
I am very happy with the final result. It is very, very warm, and cosy to wear, and it is very becoming, even being quite thick, all in all. I am now really curious about the water resistance properties of the oilskin. Sometimes, specially in summer festivals outdoors, I must stand in the rain. I will put it to the test then. It would not be the first time I get soaked in a memade rain jacket!
