The Tudor Coif

So I popped into the fabric shop last week, and rather wish I hadn't!  There, sat in the end of roll section, at half price to boot, was a charcoal grey poly cotton that looked like a thick linen weave.  It was the perfect colour match against the orange and black and a lovely weight, which draped beautifully.  Unfortunately there were only 5m and I need 10m.  I'm waiting on a very nice sales assistant to see if they can track down another 5m.... it's been a week, I have every finger and toe crossed!

In the meantime, I had a couple of hours clear yesterday morning and decided to make the coif.  It comprises three pieces; the coif, a lining and a band at the nape of the neck.  The first step is to stitch the back seam of the coif and the lining and press them open.

Right sides together, pin the coif and the lining together and then sew around the entire edge, with the exception of the neck seam.

Trim the seam and clip the curved edges.

Then turn, press well and try on.  The instructions state that you may need to trim the peak of the coif, they didn't say that I'd look like a smurf! 

I turned the coif inside out, pinned the the length of the outline of my head and then drew a more curved outline and ran a line of stitching.

It took a couple of adjustments to get it completely right.  The instructions then don't tell you what to do to trim the peak, after some playing I decided to trim it close to the seam and run a zigzag stitch along it; if it starts to fray too badly, I will trim it with bias binding.

Once the coif was fitting better, I sewed the band (right side to right side) along the length of the neck.  Pressed it flat and then turned and pressed the other three edges.  

Once pressed, the band was folded on itself and the long edge slipstitched in place.  The ends are left open and a 2-3 yrd tie threaded through.  I chose to you the same 1/4" black ribbon that I used to trim the smock.  One tudor coif, done.

I rather love it!  Though I have one problem, I don't have enough hair... I should be balancing it on plaits wrapped across the top of my head and may need to start thinking wigs or temporary extensions for when I wear it properly.