My pink 14th century hood with long liripipe & decorative chain stitch embroidery – revisited

And now, that I already started my new 14th century hood project for a friend – about which I told you yesterday – I would like to take the chance and tell you a little bit more about my other 14th century hood projects.

As some of you might remember, I already revisited my 14th century hood with daggings, long liripipe and decorative chain stitch embroidery project last year. This 14th century hood was my favorite hood until I decided to give it away to a very nice friend whom I met at an SCA event in England – at Rhaglan.

Well, to give my hood away was actually a very easy decision for me. I knew that I could easily make a new 14th century hood for myself again and I did. And guess what – though my new hood might be not as fancy as my old one, I still love my new pink hood! …and I will show and tell you a little bit more about it today.

But let’s start with two pictures of me wearing my new 14th century hood at an SCA event in Midrealm – Tourney of the Roses – they show my hood before I embroidered it:

Yes, you can tell that I love my warm and comfy hood. My woolen pink 14th century hood already kept me warm and dry during several quite cold and moist events. And I love my hood even more since I added some nice embroidery to it.

Apropos embroidery – let’s take a look at the chain stitch embroidery which I added to my 14th century hood shortly after this pictures were taken – enjoy! 😀 

Well, the embroidery is not very fancy but as you can see, the medieval inspired pattern works very well on the hood and adds a nice medieval touch it.

Here a closer picture of the embroidery at the liripipe for you:

…and here a close up picture of the embroidery at the hem:

As you can see on the picture above, I just used a very simple chain stitch to decorate my hood. The small crosses at the bottom are a very simple combination of long stitches. If you would like me to name a specific embroidery technique concerning the crosses you could actually call it a very simple variation of what is know to many of you as “Blackwork” or “Holbein Stitch”.

I also decided to add some small beads as well which seemed to fit very nicely to the color of the thread and I am very glad  about this decision – they work really well with the major pattern.

Btw. the inspiration for this bead decoration comes from a numerous amount of medieval pictures which show a similar 3-bead-pattern along the hem of some cloaks. Simply watch out for depictions of medieval Marias from around the 14th century and later and you will very soon discover them yourself… 🙂

And here a picture to answer a question which I was asked quite often during the last years:

Yes, I tend to add my embroidery after I completed the hand-sewing – or where not possible, I add it after I completed most of the hand-sewing. This gives me the possibility to plan the embroidery patterns at once. Furthermore it also helps me to avoid any possible gaps or pattern overlays which might occur if I would do the embroidery first and then apply it to the fabric. 🙂

Btw. a short hint about how I did the bottom pattern:
After deciding about the proper distance between the arches I marked the bottom points of the arches with some simple pins. This way you can easily see if the distance you calculated really works out or if you have to adjust it. Then I took this measurement and made a simple arch model from some thick paper.

A simple model made from thick paper or thin cardboard can also be used for more fancy designs including Fleur-de-Lis, circles or diamonds. A paper model allows you to pin your pattern to every place where you want to embroider it. Furthermore it also helps you to achieve a certain similarity from one pattern part to the next when you embroider more than one. And last but not least it also allows you to work more elaborate patterns on fabric surfaces which don’t allow you to pre-draw your pattern on its surface like thick felted wool fabrics,…

And how to use a paper model? Well, you simply cut out our model, pin it in place and embroider around it’s edges – it’s really as simple at that. The paper model is just a stiff and moveable version of the outlines you normally draw directly on to the fabric. I will take a picture of this technique the next time I use it. 🙂  

Well, I think this is a lovely pink 14th century hood, isn’t it… And I love it! 😀