…well, here you can see the second part of my seam treatment of the seam around the face opening of my hood – unfortunately the picture of step one didn’t turn out well.

The first step was to fold the edge of the fabric to the inside and to sew the edge to the fabric with small stitches while laying in a thread next to the edge…
If my description seems a little bit unclear (sorry, English is not my mother tongue) or you have questions to this seam treatment – please scroll down to the last picture of this post where I took a photo of my finished seam and two rather similar schematic drawings of this technique from two of my books to give you a better idea of this technique…

…here another picture of the sewing progress where you can also see the inner part of the seam with the inlaid thread… I tried this technique the first time for the hood of my mommy Kahina and I think it’s a great technique to give more stability to the edge of the wool – the inlaid thread takes any movement of the fabric or any tension that you put on the fabric directly and away from the wool fabric – that means the thread prevents the stretching of the wool fabric, furthermore also that the edge from fraying and small bits of the wool fabric from escapeing from the small stitches and keeps the wool in place… in my opinion a good technique to build a long lasting seam especially for the seam around the face opening of a hood

…and here a better picture of part 2 of the seam treatment – small stitches near to the edge of the seam which make the seam edge very flat – especially nice when you use rather bulky wool, this is a nice technique to flatten your seam and another plus – it also looks very decorative

…I especially like this seam accomplished with very small stitches – as you can see at the picture I work the small stitches with 90 degrees to the wool fabric

…and one picture of the inside out…

Finally Cleo presents the finished seam treatment of the face opening of the hood

…and well, I decided to practise this seam treatment technique a little bit more and also to treat the bottom seam with the same technique…

…and as I promised – two schematic drawings of the seam treatment technique and the the great books where you can find much more information about this and other period seam treatment techniques:

The left one is from the book “Kleidung im Mittelalter: Materialien – Konstruktion – Nähtechnik. Ein Handbuch” – picture number 34 at page 99 / chapter “Nähtechnik und Sticharten”.
According to the book this seam treatment technique can be found at finds from Herjolfsnes at the face opening  of hoods and the neckline of dresses… – you can find this and other detailed information about period sewing techniques in this book.
Unfortunately the book is just available in German at the moment but there are also some good news – first Katrin Kania (the author of this book) has a nice blog in English -> http://togs-from-bogs.blogspot.co.at and she is also working on getting this book translated and published in English – if you are interested in an English version of this book please visit and read her posting here: “The quest for numbers… again.”

…and the right one is from the book “Medieval Garments Reconstructed: Norse Clothing Patterns” – yay, the lovely and rather new book about the reconstruction of some of the medieval garments which were found during an excavation at Herjolfsnes in Greenland… yay, exactly the same period finds the book I mentioned before is referring too. You can find the schematic picture – drawing by Irene Skals – “Fig. 21a” here on page 30 / chapter: “Producing a hand-made reconstruction” accompanied by the text:

“A turned back hem, with overcast stitches sewn on top of one or several (filler) threads that cover the raw edge, was prevalent in Norse Greenland. This type of needlework can be found around face-openings; almost always seen together with one or two rows of stab stitches  placed some few millimeters from the outermost edge.”

…and furthermore the hood pattern I used for this and Kahinas hood is based on the hood pattern “Museum No. D10597″ at pages 110+ of this book… yay, this book is definitely one of my favourite books as well as the one mentioned before

Some of you might notice the small difference between the schematic pictures of this technique – the left picture from the book ”Kleidung im Mittelalter: Materialien – Konstruktion – Nähtechnik. Ein Handbuch” shows that the thread is laid in next to the edge of the wool fabric and the book ”Medieval Garments Reconstructed: Norse Clothing Patterns” shows that the thread is laid on the wool fabric, next to the edge but a little bit away from the edge – I personally find the version from the first book of Katrin Kania – “Kleidung im Mittelalter: Materialien – Konstruktion – Nähtechnik. Ein Handbuch” - easier to accomplish – please feel free to try both techniques and to decide which version of this seam treatment technique works better for you.

…and now because the sewing is done… EMBROIDERY! finally! *lol*