HSM21: Challenge 6 on your head - a 17th century hood

 For our little get together outside yesterday I wanted to have something on my head to keep warm. My 16th century wulsthaube and hood are made of linen, and linen does nothing to keep you warm. I really wanted to make something from wool. Without any source for 16th century wool headwear I decided to go for 17th century. This was not an event where historical accuracy was important, so I'd rather be warm than correct. One day I am going to make 17th century clothes as well, so I might as well start.

In Dutch paintings from the middle of the 17th century one can find quite a few black hoods, especially for winterwear.

Old woman reading, by Rembrandt

Winter by Hollar

The black hood also shows up on women in the series of townscriers of London, from the second half of the 17th century.

I have not done a lot of indepent research on the black hoods, so I recommend reading the Costume Historian's Women's hoods 1600-1690. Nicole Kipar also had a great site with resources for the middle of the 17th century, and that is where I found the inspiration for my pattern. Even if I didn't use it exactly.

What I could pick up from a quick glance is that the hood was worn as outerwear. It is possibly a regional fashion for the Netherlands and England, rather than a general European fashion. It is always black. In the middle of the 17th century it was not a very fashionable thing, mostly worn by older women and lower class women. The painting by Rembrandt shows that the hood could be lined with fur. For many of the black and white drawings it's hard to see if the hood is lined or not. I get a sense that they are lined, but since I did not have any dark, suitable fabrics available I decided to do an unlined hood.

My pattern was very much decided by the piece of fabric I had. It was the last remnant of fabric from when I made my Enfys Nest cape. It's a black felted wool. _The top is placed on fold. The width is 48 cm, this was pretty long but since _I was going to wear it over my wulsthaube I exaggerated it a bit. The short backside is 25 cm, and then I cut the fabric in an angle. After I had a straight angle I recut it a bit to get the little point of fabric. I would have preferred to have the point be a bit longer, but that was where my fabric ended.

For yesterday I simply gathered the back and wore the hood with unfinished edges. I felt that it worked really well though, so today I took away the gathering and redid the hood with better finished.

I hemmed everything except the back. I did a single fold and then added a dark grey wool thread as a filler thread. I do not know if this was a technique that was used in the 17th century, but I felt that it's much prettier than just the single fold. Sewing with black thread on black fabric was not fun, it felt like I had to sew more by touch than by eye, so it took the whole day to do the hems.

This is the full piece, with three edges hemmed, but the short backside is unhemmed.

The back was gathered. For all sewing I use black, waxed linen thread.

I gathered the back as much as I could and tied the gathering threads together, this made the back form a loop, with a tiny opening in the middle.

To close the opening I sewed it shut, under the gathering thread.

The finshed hood stays in place even if I don't tie it under the chin. The head is wearing my wulsthaube under the hood.

Back of the hood

Profile view

The straps are just long enough to tie under the chin. It would have been better if they had been just a bit longer.

This is what the hood looked like when I wore it, without the finished edges. 

What the item is: a 17th century winter hood
How it fits the challenge: It's a hood to wear as outerwear to protect against the weather

Material: ca 1 m of black felted wool
Pattern: My own, with inspiration from Nicole Kipar's patterns of 17th century hoods
Year: mid 17th century
Notions: grey wool yarn and black linen thread
How historically accurate is it? 75% The pattern is there, I'm just not sure if the hood should have bene lined or not, and if a filler thread would have been used when hemming.

Hours to complete: 4
First worn: Yesterday for an evening outside in historical wear with some friends
Total cost: Everything from stash, but the fabric would have cost around $10.