The Cap of St. Birgitta - second version

I've never really worn the Birgitta cap I made three years ago. When it came to actually using it, I wasn't happy with it at all. Every time I was about to put on a medieval headdress I chose to just tie an all-purpose rectangular piece of cloth around my head and pin a veil to it rather than wearing my cap. Eventually I figured out that I would actually prefer a larger cap than the one I'd made. Something a bit more like the first mock-up I made the last time around, the one I had to scrunch up beyond recognition to compensate for my lack of Proper Hair. 

So I made a new one! I wore it this weekend for the (to my mind) exceptionally paltry Medieval Festival at Bohus fästning, Kungälv (the second link will take you to a slide show of images of Bohus Castle itself - if you put up with the slightly tacky photo montages at the beginning you'll get to see some really spectacular pictures!). The cap, as opposed to the event, was a success!

I still don't have enough hair to fill the cap, but it nevertheless felt a lot better to have that extra fabric to play around with. The problem with the first cap was that it threatened to slide off my head, and I certainly prefer a bit of scrunched-up fabric to having my headgear fall off.

I took the opportunity to explore the art of embroidery a bit further this time and worked a slightly improvised version of interlaced herringbone stitch to join the two halves of the cap. It does look a bit scruffy, but I think it'll even itself out eventually.

The Cap of St. Birgitta - second version

And here's me trying it on and taking a picture of myself without a tripod. My arm is coming off at the shoulder (the camera is heavy!), but I've almost achieved that sought-after pear-shape! Yes, there's an obvious amount of deflated fabric too, but it's all my own hair in there this time!

Going slightly pear-shaped?!

References:

See the first post about the Cap of St. Birgitta, from 2008.