A frilly 18th century cap

When I finished my pet en l'air I felt that it was soooooo frilly and froofy, and that I needed a cap to go with it. The caps that I have were either way to late, like my 1780's cap that need a giant hedgehog hairstyle, or more prim and proper and mostly made to hide the hair.

I looked around for other styles of caps. La Coutourière Parisienne has a great overview of different styles of caps for the 18th Century. I also found this and a similar extant cap.

Flemish cap, 18th century

 These kinds of caps were mostly popular around France, and around the 1750's, so a bit earlier than my aimed for 1760's, but not too far off. I definitely liked the style though so I decided to make one. I didn't have any nice lace, but I did have around half a meter of fine linen.

I started out with cutting out a half circle of the linen.

I tried the general shape on my wig head to see what it would look like.

Yes, the green wig is an upcoming Project. I felt that it went too far down on the sides though, so I cut off the sides so that it looked more like a half oval in shape.

This felt much better when I tried it on the wig head again.

I then cut out three strips of the linen to make the ruffle and bands that hang down.

The strips were joined together to make one long band, and all the sides of the band and the main cap were hemmed with a rolled hem. For the straight side of the cap I folded the edge over to make a channel that I could put a ribbon through to adjust it.

I then pinned the band to the cap. I decided how long I wanted the ribbons to be, when they hung down behind the cap, and the rest of the band was pleated to the cap. After sewing the band to the cap I pressed the pleats down.

I treaded a ribbon through the straight edge of the cap, so that I could adjust the size. I didn't do it the most correct way though. Then you attach a ribbon to each side of the edge, and have them meet in the middle so that you can tie them together in an opening in the channel.

On the inside of the cap I attached Three small loops of ribbons so that I could attach a bobby pin in each, to secure the cap on my hair.

And this is me wearing the finished cap. It stayed on the whole day, even if it was quite windy at times.