SC - raingear

[Stefan li Rous]

Anahita said:
> Oh! That reminds me. I was in Morocco during the rainy season. The 
> majority of men wear wool jelabas. A jelaba is basically an 
> ankle-length T-tunic with a big deep hood (cut more or less as a 
> right triangle or a long rectangle, according to my examinations).
> 
> When it's raining, wool gets wet and very heavy and in the Moroccan 
> climate probably doesn't get dry for days and days (it took over 3 
> days for my cotton turtleneck to dry indoors - wool would take 
> longer).
> 
> So i saw a modern innovation: jelabas made of rain coat material! 
> Most were navy blue plastic fabric of some sort, but in Marrakesh i 
> saw one that was bright day-glo orange.

A more period solution might be to use felted wool. Of course, while
this will shed the water if it rains hard or long enough, it will get 
wet. But then the plastic ones don't breath and if you use them enough, 
you get wet from prespiration anyway.

I've had poor luck trying to felt wool, probably because I'm choosing
the wrong wool, but my choices have been limited down here in Texas.
My current solution is a cloak lined with a military blanket and
heavily Scotch guarded (actually a competing brand).

For more details on what others have done check this file in the
CLOTHING section of my files:
raingear-msg      (49K)  7/22/98    Period raingear. waterproofing cloth.
- -- 
THLord  Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
Mark S. Harris             Austin, Texas         stefan at texas.net
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****