10 April 2005
Rain Skirt
I think the umbrella is a crude device, and I try to avoid carrying one. On a crowded sidewalk, one must constantly prevent one's umbrella from colliding into oncoming umbrellas, or from poking fellow pedestrians with their wicked spines. Then there's the necessity for pausing in every doorway, blocking it while you collapse the umbrella and shake off the raindrops, and making everyone else wait while you do so. And heaven forbid a wild wind catches your umbrella, wrestling it out of your hands or yanking it inside-out.
What a hassle! Give me a waterproof, hooded jacket any day. Gore-Tex is one of the greatest inventions of the 20th century. Even wool will do nicely, with its naturally water-repellant sheep-oils and its mysterious ability to keep you warm even while saturated with cold water.
One of my ambitions is to create a line of weatherproof clothing that's actually cute, suitable for urban as well as wilderness environments. Weatherproof Garment makes beautiful jackets, but nothing else. If you want rainproof bottoms, you're stuck with puffy pants from REI. Their Gore-Tex clothing is wonderfully functional, but the prevailing style is masculine and sporty. That's fine, but sometimes one wants weatherproof clothing for non-sporting occasions. I don't always want to look like I'm going on a hike—even when I am! But I do want to be impervious to the weather, without a foolish umbrella.
Along those lines, I finally finished this rain skirt. It's waterproof, lined, and has snaps, a dual-separating zipper, and a waterproof pocket (not shown). I can unzip it from the bottom to make a slit, unzip it from the top to pull it on or off, or separate the zipper like a wrap skirt. It fits perfectly and looks cute!
There are two tricky things about sewing your own waterproof garments:
- Fabric is hard to find.
I got lucky: One day, Discount Fabrics happened to have a few yards of cast-off Ultrex, the generic form of Gore-Tex, and was unloading it for $.99/yard. I grabbed all of it. Normally, you have to specially order this type of fabric. Or, I can trek over to Berkeley and visit Narain's, but their selection of garment-appropriate fabrics is limited. It's also rare to find such fabric in colors that are reasonably attractive.
- Every stitch is a potential point of failure.
Wherever your needle pokes a hole, you've created a leak in your waterproof fabric. Every seam must be sealed three times: on the left, on the right, and down the center. This is easy to do with silicone seam sealer, usually sold for sealing tent seams and such. But it's also time-consuming. And if you later need to stitch over the sealant, it can stick to your sewing machine's presser foot and feed dog, causing ripples.
What's next? Perhaps a pair of bicycle pants....