MYOG from Phil Scott

[Admin note: Check the info on expoxy toxicity below. Also, just added this link to reddit MYOG...it seems like this info should migrate out from here. Hopefully that will help.

[Note: any corrections or extensions to this will be posted as comments below.]

It's a bloody cagoule, for Christ's sake, not a fashion item!

Despite a lot of humalimali about the time-frame for the "first" cagoules, it's just one of those obvious garments that have their origin in the mists of time.  After all, it's just a large anorak!  As an illustration of this, my first cagoule project was modeled on a very much beat-up sample that I got from Holubar, circa 1960.  It was virtually in rags, having been made in the mid-30s and having gone all the way through the War.  I had dropped by for a fitting [of one of his superb expeditionary down jackets] and had mentioned the fact that I was about ready to attempt a cagoule to replace an unsatisfactory one that I'd borrowed.  He dug a shot one, out of a box that contained a number of potential projects, asking only that I send him my derived pattern.

The traditional definition we had at Camp Four was that the cagoule had originally been made in France [during the War] out of paraffin-waterproofed flour-sacks or whatever else was available. Because the French alpinists wanted to climb, they cobbled together gear as best they could: they were going to go climbing anyhow. However, the 30's garment, from Holubar,..