The Armour Archive

I would like to make a chaperon hat....I think I understand the basics of the pattern, but would like any hints, tips, etc on making them.

Im mainly curious about how the tail and "blossoming part" of the hat is stitched into the roll....is it just sort of sewn in there somehow or is there a trick to it? I read the Cynthia Virtue article but its a bit vague about any theories on how the top parts were stitched....in fact most articles are vague about how to make the seams / connections of the parts on the inside of the hat look decent....I dont want to just cram and stitch ya know

a few examples of the style I like...




(this is either a cute woman or a beautiful man... dunno, not sure)





thanks
Drew

UPDATE...I just realized its one piece.

Ginseng rocks!

While I am unsure if they are still hoods at that point in time, they begin as hoods and are often made from hoods.

One thing that will help is learning how to chaperon a hood.

You have a face opening and a cowl opening about your neck.

Take the face opening and start rolling it back towards the back of the hood like you're rolling up a sleeve. The face opening as you get farther back along the hood will get a little smaller. Keep rolling to absorb quite a lot of the entire hood, likely including some of the cowl. Roll until it's small enough to fit your head fairly snugly at hat measurement level, shove it onto your knob, and arrange the protruding remnants, mostly hood cowl, into a stylish coxcomb. Similar stylin' goes on with a liripipe, if present. Voilà, a cap with the roll doing the service of a brim. If the clement skies turn cold or nasty, shake the whole thing out and pop it on as your nice, warm, insulative and sheltering hood.

This is what a stitched chaperon is imitating with its roll-and-coxcomb structures.

They did start as hoods but the chaperon as shown is made in a different manner.

Normally the early ones (made from hoods) have a much flatter band around the head and considerably more "comb" hanging down from it like the right hand image of the three men.

The later ones (proper chaperons) have a thicker, rounder band.

They can be made from two or three pieces of fabric, both methods use a long rectangle for the liripipe (mine is around 3ft 6inches) and either one huge rectangle which forms the comb and the band or two rectangles that you sew together when they are made up.

Make sure that you cut the "band"part considerably larger than your head size, when it is sewn and stuffed it will "shrink" lots!

Hope that helps,

JonT

For detailed pictures and instructions find someone near you with a copy of "The Medieval Tailor's Assistant" by Sarah Thursfield.

Thanks folks.

So there are good workable patterns in Med. Tailors Assist. for a proper chaperon?

What about the seam interface? Thats really the part that bugs me. How are the parts seamed and stitched so they look decent? ...Im saying because its an odd sort of sewing job.

I worked on a pattern for one for a couple of days, and finally got it worked out where I could make an accurate one in cheap muslin. So I thought I would make the final product out of velvet. Bad idea. Ruined a nice expensive length of velvet.

Eventually I'll get around to trying it again out of wool.

There are instructions for a LOT of things in Med Tailors Asst. I don't remember if there's a chaperon in there, but that book will be able to answer a lot of your other construction questions.

Charlotte J wrote:There are instructions for a LOT of things in Med Tailors Asst. I don't remember if there's a chaperon in there, but that book will be able to answer a lot of your other construction questions.

Yep - a really handy book... just added it to my wish-list

It will also help with some pointers on stitching, since some 'modern' sewing books don't talk about some of the fiddly details of hand-stitching.

They have a pattern for one on page 196 in paperback version Medieval Tailors Assistant.

Charlotte J wrote:There are instructions for a LOT of things in Med Tailors Asst. I don't remember if there's a chaperon in there, but that book will be able to answer a lot of your other construction questions.

Sadly, not enough for early medieval stuff. Nevertheless, it's still the most helpful book I have read on how to sew medieval kit. And yes, lots on chaperons.

I guess Ill have to part with dough for a copy.


GenericUnique I have some books on early clothing you might find useful.

Off hand one is Northern European Textiles Until 1000 AD by Lise Bender

It doesnt have patterns so much as VERY indepth info about weaving, weaves, stuff like that...

It reminds me a lot of a precursor to the Medieval London Textiles and Clothing book....whatever that title is and I recommend both.

The Northern European...Until 1000 is out of print so I photocopied a book via interlibrary loan. Try doing this...or hunting around the net for a copy.

http://www.amazon.com/North-European-Te ... 8772884169


also........check out this website http://www.medievaltextiles.org/


Lots of good stuff there....