SWEET HEART: Fixing up a raincoat for Megan

We have a friend from church who is very generous with giving up hand-me-down clothes and things she finds when going to garage sales and thrift stores. Something that she had given us this year was some short sleeved jackets (pictured above). When I looked them over more carefully I realized that they were of the material for raincoats- you know, nice light-weight, fabric raincoats. I have no idea what prompted the designer to make them short-sleeved but they did. Anyway, we didn't have any use for short sleeved raincoats and though these were women's sized I already had a raincoat but Megan did need one. So....

I decided to fix it up! My original plan was to combine both raincoats to make one but as I was getting started on the blue coat which I had decided would be the main color, Aaron came down and said "Can't you fix up the green one for me?" so I decided I would find some other fabric to add to the blue so I could use the green one for him. I will have to do a bit more adjusting on his so that it doesn't look feminine.

The steps that I took to fix it up were:

Cut off the hood, cut it smaller, put elastic in the casing instead of ties, re-attach it to the jacket.
Cut the side seams (especially under the arms) smaller.
Cut the ruffle off the sleeves (basically cutting the sleeves in half horizontally) so that I can re-attach it below as a cuff.
Cut fabric to go in between the two sleeve sections and sew it in place. I had some nylon fabric that my grandma had bought and made some tablecloths out of. I don't think it is really waterproof but it is probably at least resistant. I was also just realizing that I have some waterproofing spray so perhaps I will try that on them.
Sew the side and sleeve seam.

That's all there was to it. It was fast and simple. It isn't perfect but Megan likes it and it seemed to work well for a walk in the rain. It is still a bit big but that means it will last her a while and so I don't really mind that.