For the upcoming renaissance faire season, I'm working on creating for myself a Viking era ensemble. The first part of that project is a hood, based on the Skjoldehamn hood found on the Norwegian islands of Andoya, which is dated between 995 and 1029 CE. I am making mine out of camel colored wool that I had in my embarrassingly large fabric stash, and lining it with a lightweight poly-cotton blend (I'm aware that the lining isn't historically accurate, but, hey, it's what I had). I sewed the pieces for the outer layer and the lining separately. My friend Jacquelyn took the outer layer to embroider a design on the front gore for me. We made our pattern from a diagram that we found on Pinterest. The original pinner also included a description of her progress with the dimensions that she used. Jacquie and I first made a muslin using the measurements from the Pinterest pattern. It's a good thing we took the time to make the muslin, because the hood using the original dimensions was way too small. Now, Jacquie and I are both pretty average sized women, so the woman we created the pattern must have had very narrow shoulders! Anyway, we adjusted the measurements a couple of times (nothing like trial and error!) until we came up with dimensions that worked for us. Because I have a fuller bust than Jacquie, we made the gores on my hood slightly larger than hers. For my hood we made the gores 14" square and the rectangular piece 14" x 56". We were able to cut the rectangle as one continuous piece, eliminating the need for a seam at the top, but it would have worked to cut two rectangles of 14" x 28". More to come on this project soon!
Here is a diagram of how the pieces go together, it is not to scale. Also, the dimensions scribbled on here are not the final ones that I used.
The pieces for my hood, cut from the wool. Pictures of the pieces sewn together will be included in my next post!