HSF14: Tops and Toes

or the cap that will take a lot of hair to pull off.

So for the challenge tops and toes I decided to make a cap to go with my revolutionary hat. The cap with a very ruffled brim can clearly be seen under the enormous hat.

The giant hat clearly needs a giant cap to go with it. I do wonder how I am going to fix the giant hairdo though, but that's something for the future.

Here is another example of a big cap with the ruffled brim framing the hair, almost like a halo. There are plenty of places out there that gives instructions on how to make an 18th century cap. I mostly followed the tutorials over at La Couturière Parisienne.

My cap consists of three parts. One round piece, with a diameter of 50 cm, one band and the brim. I wanted a really tight ruffled brim, so I cut out a brim that was four times as long as the band and gathered it instead of pleating.

This is my first ever project that I decided to sew totally by hand. It was a bit hard to find out exactly what stitches were used, but I checked out what Costume Close-Up says about seams in the 18th century. In the end I used a running stitch, with some fastening backstitches, to hem the brim. I then used backstitches to attach the brim to the band, and the top of the cap to the band. My stitching wasn't too bad actually. I'm quite pleased with my running stitches, but my back stitches could definitely take some more practice to get really even. One thing I noticed was that I found it pretty hard to keep the seam allowance the same and sew in a straight line.

This was the end result. When I tried it on I realised that it basically looked like a glorified bath cap on me. Big cap needs big hair under it. So I went after my 18th century wig, the one I used for Snow White. I didn't style it properly, just put the cap on it, but even without a proper hairdo it was clear that it looked a lot better.

I then enlarged it a bit more so that I could get the halo effect around the hair.

And with that I am pretty satisfied with myself. I had hoped that I would maybe be able to use the cap without a wig, for those days when I just don't want to bother with styling the hair, but that's not an option. I quite enjoyed making the cap, and sewing it by hand, and since I have quite a bit of linen left I definitely think that I'm going to make another one, a smaller one and maybe with a pleated ruffle instead of the gathered one.

The HSF details:

The Challenge: Tops and Toes
Fabric: lightweight linen
Pattern: None, used my own after inspiration from web tutorials
Year: 1787
Notions: regular sewing thread, satin ribbon
How historically accurate is it? Probably my most accurate object yet, since it was handsewn. I did use poly thread and a poly satin ribbon though so I think it ends up around 85%
Hours to complete: 5 (at least it took around 5 episoded of Call the Midwife)
First worn: Not yet
Total cost: Linen - $5, rest from stash