A Very Serious Lappet Cap

It is absolutely no secret that I love the cap patterns from Good Wives Linens.
They are well drafted, meticulously researched, easy to put together, and her pattern releases always seem to synchronize with the cap I'm personally wanting!

For example - I wanted a mid-18th century lappet cap, and Good Wives Linens released the Mrs Sandby cap.  Perfect synchronicity of purpose.

 

Caps are good late-evening sewing projects.  They don't have to be fitted, you hem all the bits individually, and do the whipping of gathers and assembly afterwards - proof against all fools but the ones who don't just sew at night, but do their measuring late at night as well. 

 

(That fool would be me, in case I'm being too subtle for you here. At least piecing is period, and "whack it off with scissors" solves everything.)

 

 

 Hemming (eventually, with pit stops for repairs) done, I whipped the ruffle to the band - 

 

 

and the band to the caul.

 

And then I had a cap.

 

 

And what a cap!

 

 

I look like I’ve been tossed, dressed and served up on a starched linen platter for the ecclesiastically discerning, but i am very VERY serious about it indeed.

 

 

 

 

 

The Mitts of Discontent Part 2: Construction

Several days later, after I had recuperated from the gastro, and unpicked the mitts fabric from my pyjamas, I chastely and sedately finished embroidering the second pair. 

I also sewed that pair to my pyjamas, three times, but that is entirely incidental to this story and has no bearing on my sewing competence. At all.

And then I cut.  Linen is wicked slippery, even when starched, and I hate cutting it. Possibly that is why I chose to make a second pair of mitts, so that I would enjoy cutting at least ONE pair of 'em.

 

The linen napkins were slightly too small for the pattern, so I ended up piecing the corners. 

 

Entropy House has a very good description of pieced mitts - make sure you keep your seam allowances and your grain directions, and everything will be fine!

The pieced pieces were stitched and felled, 

 

then the side seams were stitched and felled, the points were sewn, the thumb pieces were finished - 

 

And the thumbs were attached, following the instructions on the B&T mitts sew-along video. 

 

 

I hemmed the bottoms of the mitts, and then I tried my mitts on.

 

Clever readers will already have noticed what I had managed to completely miss until the mitts were already sewn and on my hands. I had seriously mis-positioned my mitt points. 

 

 

Mitt points are supposed to be balanced over the flat of the back of the knuckles, but mine were wandering off sideways into my palm.  And they were too small. And too pointy.  I hated them.

I re-cut them to try and recenter the point, but it made them even pointier, and I only hated them worse.

 

 Looking back now at the photos of the new points, they were perfectly respectable and okay, but in one of those late-night really clever sewing moments, I cut them off.

 

And I liked the mitts like that - pointless.

They were elegant and clean - but as I was reminded, only really appropriate that way for the mid 1790s onward, which is WHY one doesn't make late night decisions with scissors. However, with a clean slate, I was now able to draft the points I really wanted -  nice happy rounded summer points.  I stitched them and I sewed them on, and I felled the seams, and I had MITTS.

Happy, lightweight summer mitts.

And

 

Rich, saturated Christmas mitts.

 

I felt mildly contented about it!