So I'm in Storlien for a hike in the mountains, the plan is to be out a full week.
I thought hey Adrian! Why don't I design a rain skirt, gaters, Merino wool T and Merino wool underwear so I can try it out during the hike!
A freakin freaking awesome idea! I proudly thought.
So I got to work with the design with the underwear, I think I was running out of clean ones at the time, simultaneously I started the rain skirt design. I got as far as a cotton prototype/mockup and thought great! This is working out grate. However I realized that the elastic properties of the the wool and cotton ribbknitted fabric was a fair bit different so the Alf finished prototype I was sewing became way too loose to wear. I was running out of time so I shelved the idea.
And proceded with the mockups for the rain skirt, and it actually seemed great!, Lengthened it a bit in the end but it seem like it would actually work! Lightweight, airy and super fast to put on or take off! Freakin great, Huh? I also finished the wool T and it's extremely comfy, although kind of see through.
Back to today's experience! For me making and testing prototype is an extremely important fase in the design process and it's goal is to find flaws, as many as possible. If you don't find any you probably haven't tested the prototype hard enough or for long enough.
So in away you can say my test was a total success!
Apperently the conditions are great for testing rain gear right now, … it's raining like crazy and it's cold. Awesome for testing, not so awesome for my hiking experience.
Next success is that I found a flaw in my design.. or a couple. When its blowing from the side the skirt tends to flap about as the fabric is pretty light weight. The second thing is that the overlap of the gaters and skirt is way to small… this means my knees got really wet. However only the knees I was pretty dry otherwise. So the idea is solid but I think I need to make higher gaters… or more something like chaps… but will that make the hole skirt idé redundant? Where is the line crossed where simple rain pants are better.
Due to my great planning and optimism/hybris I didn't pack propper rain pants.. great work Adrian! *Slow clap to myself* any how here's a few pics! Enjoy!
