The Rain Skirt

I'm still trying to prepare our wardrobes for our upcoming move to Estonia. I have most everything we will need to be in a cold, wet climate. But I still had the dilemma of keeping my daughter modest while still allowing her to have fun in the snow and rain. My son was easy; I just bought him snow pants and rain pants.. problem solved. While I also bought these items for my daughter, I was not going to let her wear them in public as pants. I'm not posting this to start a debate about modesty... that's just the way it's going to be; end of discussion. Praise the Lord, he gave me sewing skills and a thinking mind... I was able to come up with a great solution.

I found a 100% cotton, water resistant fabric online that would work very well for my plan. It's not water proof, but it will be a good shield against getting soaked.....
Next I made a wrap skirt by using three skirt panels, sewn together side by side, hemming all the edges and applying Velcro in strategic places around the waistline.....
I made the panels wrap around enough so that when she's playing, or when the wind is blowing hard, she will still have enough coverage....
This is intended to be worn over whatever clothing she's wearing at the time; be it snow or rain pants, or just her daily wardrobe. With a coat and boots on, nobody would guess that this wasn't just a regular skirt....
Besides using this for play, it will also be very beneficial on an almost daily basis. Estonia gets a LOT of rain. And anyone who has spent any time in the rain knows that wearing a raincoat and/or holding an umbrella only does half the job. The lower half of you still gets soaked. And once you're soaked, it takes a long time to dry out. And if the weather is cold it means you will stay cold until you can change clothing. With this rain skirt, we can take it with us and it can quickly be put on over clothing whenever the rain begins. Then, when we reach our destination (inside a store, or church, etc.) it can also easily be removed. I made a pouch for the skirt out of some of the fabric....
This way the wet skirt won't get everything else around it wet as well.

I have some black rip-stop nylon on the way to make myself one of these skirts as well. From where I sit now, it seems like a great idea. I hope it proves itself useful when put into practice!