St. Birgitta cap

In the recently release book Medieval Clothing and Textiles 5, (Netherington, Robin and Owen-Crocker, Gale, R.; Medieval Clothing and Textiles 1; The Boydell Press, 2009), was a lovely article on recreating a St. Birgitta cap. This is my recreation of the cap using the information found in the article. Although I have used this cap several times with my frilled veil and U-shaped pins. The strap which is used to wrap around my head is much too short. (I under-estimated the size of my big round head) I am currently working on a new one and when it is finished will post pictures of the finished cap on and in use. My daughter also has a cap that I made her and she loves it. I will also post some pictures of her wearing her cap as well.

The cap is completely constructed of wider weave linen and all hand stitched with cotton thread. The next cap will be mad with the same wider weave linen which I think gives it a more period look but I will use linen thread.

This is a close-up of the back of the cap. The cap is actually two separate pieces and joined together through a inner weaving of threads. I used silk thread and a herringbone stitch up and down the cap three times and inner weaving the stitches as I went along to achieve this look.