I did adapt one of those snowsmocks to me personal likings too.
First I dyed it using tea, see http://www.bushcraftuk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=102881&highlight=
After that I made a liner for it, using an old ladies wool trenchcoat/long coat, which I had also bought for the fur on the collar.
Here are the stories about liner and finishing;
I had several more plans for it; adding a ruff to the hood, replacing the plastic buttons with natural material ones (Skaukraft suggested juniperwood, so I cut off a good sized branch from a dead/dying juniper and dried that) and add some decorations, in order to reduce the military look and give a personal touch.
In the secondhandstore I regularly visit, I was looking for some fur to creat a ruff around the hoodedge. I found several pieces, but all were to short and some quit "expensive". I kept on looking through the shelves and racks of clothing, untill I came across a long, dark green ladies coat. You know, the kind grandma used to wear. Picture an elderly lady in a long, woolen coat and you'll know what I mean!
Yep, something like that..... but with some fur on the collar.
By the way this is not my grandma, neither is it the coat I bought. It's just an internetpicture, but one that exactly shows what I meant. Thanks for standing in, lady!
The fur is no fox or something longhaired, but a kind of mink (I guess), so I'll have to make due with it, untill I can get my hands on something else. I like the colour a lot though...
And that coat..... it gave me another idea..... I have been planning on making something like a blanketcoat, a capote, but somehow I did not want to cut up a perfectly good wool blanket. The coat looked and felt like wool.... I checked the inside for a label and found one. The label said;
Hmmm... it was might just be about my size around the shoulders and arms, bit too small actually, especially around the shoulders. But what if I'd take out all the lining, cut it up and resew it a little... It might just make a nice, wool liner for my smock... So it came home with me for a few kronor. Doing a bit of research gave me this; Wallbergs Fabriks AB, based in Halmstad, closed in 1968, so the coat predates that!
I got rid of all the lining, pockets, buttons and such, tore loose many of the seams and took away the collar, too. I shortened the coat, leaving the rear a bit longer than the front, lengthened the arms by undoing the seams, redid the front and sewed it together, added seamband all along the edges and what do you know..... a wool liner, which fits both me and the smock. And I even like the colour!! After it came out of the washing machine and had almost dried, there could be no doubt. The fabric did have that faint, yet very distinctive smell of wool!
I still need to sew up the remaining buttonwholes and add a button and loop to the top, so I can close it.
It was fully functional after I dyed it, but I added some personal touches and decorations, to.... well... just make it mine.
At the secondhandstore I talked about earlier I found some blue and yellowribbon, which I really like. At home it turned out to be less than I had hoped for, so I just did the collar and the upper arms.
Skaukraft suggested I'd use juniperwood to make new buttons, so I gave that a try. And I am pleased with the result! The wood is kind of tough to work with as it is a hard kind of wood. But after a couple of hours of carving, sawing, sanding, finding out the buttons were to thick, so more sawing and sanding, drilling and oiling I had all the buttons needed. The resulting buttons are a bit crude, but I like it that way. Not to neat and polished.
I also added the fur. That proved to be harder to do than I had anticipated, because I practically could not see what I was doing. The sewing was done by tough rather than by sight.
I cut small holes in the fur, through which the straps of the hood run. This way I can still draw the hood tight.
Offcourse I had to have the almost obligatory moose too. I scored a large box full of leatherscraps and from that I made my own moosepatch with three different coloyrs of leather. I used the rough side out. The green underground is a left over from the woolcoatliner.
The first trails; I did those while shoveling snow on a cold (-8) morning with quit a bit of wind. I only wore a t-shirt and a flanel shirt underneath, but still I got sweaty. The anorak really is windproof.
I don't do well on pictures.... In real life I'm less of a sourpuss....
And the liner is finished, too. I added two more buttons so I can close up the v-shaped collar and I stitched up the old buttonholes...
First I dyed it using tea, see http://www.bushcraftuk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=102881&highlight=
After that I made a liner for it, using an old ladies wool trenchcoat/long coat, which I had also bought for the fur on the collar.
Here are the stories about liner and finishing;
I had several more plans for it; adding a ruff to the hood, replacing the plastic buttons with natural material ones (Skaukraft suggested juniperwood, so I cut off a good sized branch from a dead/dying juniper and dried that) and add some decorations, in order to reduce the military look and give a personal touch.
In the secondhandstore I regularly visit, I was looking for some fur to creat a ruff around the hoodedge. I found several pieces, but all were to short and some quit "expensive". I kept on looking through the shelves and racks of clothing, untill I came across a long, dark green ladies coat. You know, the kind grandma used to wear. Picture an elderly lady in a long, woolen coat and you'll know what I mean!
Yep, something like that..... but with some fur on the collar.
By the way this is not my grandma, neither is it the coat I bought. It's just an internetpicture, but one that exactly shows what I meant. Thanks for standing in, lady!
The fur is no fox or something longhaired, but a kind of mink (I guess), so I'll have to make due with it, untill I can get my hands on something else. I like the colour a lot though...
And that coat..... it gave me another idea..... I have been planning on making something like a blanketcoat, a capote, but somehow I did not want to cut up a perfectly good wool blanket. The coat looked and felt like wool.... I checked the inside for a label and found one. The label said;
Hmmm... it was might just be about my size around the shoulders and arms, bit too small actually, especially around the shoulders. But what if I'd take out all the lining, cut it up and resew it a little... It might just make a nice, wool liner for my smock... So it came home with me for a few kronor. Doing a bit of research gave me this; Wallbergs Fabriks AB, based in Halmstad, closed in 1968, so the coat predates that!
I got rid of all the lining, pockets, buttons and such, tore loose many of the seams and took away the collar, too. I shortened the coat, leaving the rear a bit longer than the front, lengthened the arms by undoing the seams, redid the front and sewed it together, added seamband all along the edges and what do you know..... a wool liner, which fits both me and the smock. And I even like the colour!! After it came out of the washing machine and had almost dried, there could be no doubt. The fabric did have that faint, yet very distinctive smell of wool!
I still need to sew up the remaining buttonwholes and add a button and loop to the top, so I can close it.
It was fully functional after I dyed it, but I added some personal touches and decorations, to.... well... just make it mine.
At the secondhandstore I talked about earlier I found some blue and yellowribbon, which I really like. At home it turned out to be less than I had hoped for, so I just did the collar and the upper arms.
Skaukraft suggested I'd use juniperwood to make new buttons, so I gave that a try. And I am pleased with the result! The wood is kind of tough to work with as it is a hard kind of wood. But after a couple of hours of carving, sawing, sanding, finding out the buttons were to thick, so more sawing and sanding, drilling and oiling I had all the buttons needed. The resulting buttons are a bit crude, but I like it that way. Not to neat and polished.
I also added the fur. That proved to be harder to do than I had anticipated, because I practically could not see what I was doing. The sewing was done by tough rather than by sight.
I cut small holes in the fur, through which the straps of the hood run. This way I can still draw the hood tight.
Offcourse I had to have the almost obligatory moose too. I scored a large box full of leatherscraps and from that I made my own moosepatch with three different coloyrs of leather. I used the rough side out. The green underground is a left over from the woolcoatliner.
The first trails; I did those while shoveling snow on a cold (-8) morning with quit a bit of wind. I only wore a t-shirt and a flanel shirt underneath, but still I got sweaty. The anorak really is windproof.
I don't do well on pictures.... In real life I'm less of a sourpuss....
And the liner is finished, too. I added two more buttons so I can close up the v-shaped collar and I stitched up the old buttonholes...
notworthy from Karl & myself 
