Why another jacket?
After wearing my original camping jacket for a year, I felt there were a number of improvements I would like to make:
- Sleeves lined with polar fleece produce too much friction when putting the jacket on with a long sleeved shirt. This has proved to be more annoying than I had anticipated. I don't want to line the entire jacket, but I think sleeve lining makes sense.
- The polar fleece/aramid/aramid sandwich that makes up the cuffs is too thick. It makes rolling the sleeves difficult. I want to make the mid-forearm to cuff part of the sleeve much thinner.
- I really like the thin "cuff hinge" in my v1 jacket. It works beautifully I think I will add a few more cuff hinges to permit rolling the sleeves higher.
- The wheatgrass and brown color scheme has proved a little divisive and clashes with the black elbow pads and zippers. It also limits the color pallet available to the rest of my outfit. I think I will go with a gray and black color scheme.
- When I made the v1 jacket, I did not have access to Superfabric. I have since obtained some and will incorporate it into the v2 jacket.
- The fit of the v1 jacket is not quite right. The arm pits are a bit too tight, the belly a bit too loose, and the neck hole a bit too far forward.
- The fairly minimal collar of the v1 jacket still annoys me. It seems I don't like collars? It gets in the way of my of my chin when I move my head around, and it pokes me in the neck. Furthermore, I never snap it shut or unroll it to full height. I like how collars look, but I'm going to reduce the collar to a minimum.
- The seam design of the v1 jacket is very linear and the aramid fabric does not stretch at all. The human body is made of compound curves. I am wondering if perhaps I can obtain a superior fit by designing more curvilinear seams. Furthermore, I simply like how curved seams look.