Picque-nicque d'Hiver

I have finally made an outer garment suitable for the Swedish winter!

Cape, mantelet - the terminology isn't clear to me, but I was going for something like this:


Far below are some pictures of my version. I wished it had been a bit longer but alas! Not enough fabric.

The outer fabric is some kind of wool... It was a remnant so there wasn't much to go on, but it had that wool stamp on it:



Probably some synthetics too. One side is shiny and shimmering (and very pretty!) and the other is dull. Gabardine? No idea. I wanted silk taffeta but my budget doesn't allow such extravagance right now! The lining in the hood is of a coral red china silk that I've had for ages without knowing what to do with it. I still have a few meters of it.

But it's the lining of this thing that makes it prepared for winter!

All wonderful, silky-smooth fake fur! Maybe not the prettiest fake fur I've seen, but it's SO soft... It came in the form of a blanket that has been for sale at our local supermarket for some time now. I always stopped to stroke it when passing by, but never got around to actually buy it. Then one week ago, they had an offer where you got the blanket and a matching pillow at a special price. I instantly saw that the pillow was destined to be a muff, so I finally gave in and bought them!

So now I have a winter garment. It's been put to test too, and passed with flying colours!

Last Saturday, I went to a wintry, snowy pick-nick in the Haga park just outside of Stockholm.

It was only -2 degrees (Celsius) but it appeared as if only six persons, me included, thought that a pick-nick in the snow was a good idea!

But it was really nice. Arrangements had been made so that a little fire sparked and we sat on logs (covered with blankets) and I wasn't cold at all, thanks to my fake fur (and a very accurate Thermos filled with hot chocolate, carefully laced with rum.. Yum!).

Well, OK, my feet turned awfully cold, and that was what finally drove me away. Ironically, since I easily could have avoided this simply by wearing another pair of socks (on top of the two pairs I already wore!) because I wore my modern boots that I use for everyday winter-wear.

But the park was lovely all covered in snow and I don't regret the excursion.

Sadly, my camera died and My phone camera barely managed to take pictures of the blazing fire:

But here's a collage of how I looked before going to the pick-nick:

[Click to embiggen]

The jacket is made from black silk taffeta and I know details are hard to make out, but it's very plain, front-closed and with a little self-ruffle at the skirt. I was going to wear it on the 12th Night Ball, in lieu of The Dress That Got To Tight, but I never attended the ball since my stupid self decided to get unwell just in the wrong time.

So the jacket got it's first airing on the pick-nick instead, not that anyone saw it or anything.

I know, I know, a white silk petticoat wasn't the brightest idea in the dirty city snow. An even lesser bright idea was to spill hot chocolate on it. Yeah.