stitching a hood to a cloak body, photos how-to

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Elleth
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stitching a hood to a cloak body, photos how-to

Post by Elleth »

Since the question came up, I took some pictures along the way as I was working on a copy of Andy's watch-cloak.
I know these aren't the best photos, but I hope they're clear enough to be helpful.

I'm not claiming this is the best way, but it's a reasonably simple technique that doesn't leave any rough edges anywhere and I've grown quite fond of it.
This is hand-sewn, but other than some of the gathering you should be able to do most of it on a machine as well.


Step one: sew the hood closed, then hem both the face of the hood and the front edges of the cloak.
merf-sewing-cloak-hood-00-hood.jpg
merf-sewing-cloak-hood-00-hood.jpg (38.03 KiB) Viewed 6220 times
merf-sewing-cloak-hood-01-cut-hemmed-neck.jpg
merf-sewing-cloak-hood-01-cut-hemmed-neck.jpg (39.89 KiB) Viewed 6220 times
You don't strictly need to whip the bottom edge of the hood or the neckhole itself, as you'll be covering that part later.
However, since this project lingered over literally years, I did the neck hole ages ago to prevent raveling as it sat waiting.
Persona: Aerlinneth, Dúnedain of Amon Lendel c. TA 3010.
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Elleth
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Re: stitching a hood to a cloak body, photos how-to

Post by Elleth »

Step two: arrange the cloak with the GOOD side to the outside. Arrange the hood above it on your workspace to mirror how it will appear once complete.
(Note how you can see the hemmed INSIDE face of the seam on the back of the hood here.)
merf-sewing-cloak-hood-02-place-hood.jpg
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Elleth
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Re: stitching a hood to a cloak body, photos how-to

Post by Elleth »

Step three: invert the hood "inside out" and down inside the cloak.
Note how now you see the OUTER side of the hood facing you: the INSIDE face of the hood and the INSIDE of the cloak body are now facing each other.
merf-sewing-cloak-hood-03-hood-inverted.jpg
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Elleth
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Re: stitching a hood to a cloak body, photos how-to

Post by Elleth »

Step four: tack down the center-back of the hood to the center-back of the cloak. Then tack down the front edge of the hood to the front edges of the cloak neck:
merf-sewing-cloak-hood-04-ends-and-center-tacked.jpg
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Here is where you check your alignment is right: when you open the hood back up, the INSIDE of the hood and the INSIDE of the cloak body should be facing you. Also note the orientation of the folded-under hems on both the front edge of the hood and the front edges of the cloak body.

This is the orientation of pieces you'll see when everything is complete. If something's backwards, now's the time to fix it! :mrgreen:
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Elleth
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Re: stitching a hood to a cloak body, photos how-to

Post by Elleth »

Step five: flip your hood back down and start spacing out your the fit of hood to cloak.

Your hood will typically be deeper than the circumference of your neck-hole, so you'll need to fit the two together.
You will see I went ahead and stitched the first 3-4" from the front edge of the hood on each end: this is important. Gathering all the way out to the chin will give you more a "little Bo Peep" look rather than "Mysterious Ranger in the Shadows."

Regarding pleats vs. gathers: either way works, it's purely a question of the final aesthetics you want.
This time I'll be doing gathers. Nice and simple: just find the center of the open top piece and the center of the open bottom piece and tack together. Then repeat and repeat again: the result will be 8 evenly spaced "poofs" of the hood against the cloak body.
merf-sewing-cloak-hood-05-tack-gathers.jpg
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Elleth
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Re: stitching a hood to a cloak body, photos how-to

Post by Elleth »

Step six: Whip-stitch the hood to the cloak body, closing up each of those poofs. This is a task that will be quicker and easier by hand, but if you're handy with a machine you can still pull it off. Or just use pleats.

Either way, keep all your stitches no more than ~1/8" from the edge of the fabric. You can take a bit more if you need to keep the fabric from raveling, but this purely to keep everything in place for your next pass: it doesn't need to hold anything structural.

Note: this is why you didn't need to whip the edges of your pieces earlier: you're effectively getting that internal hem for free in this step.
merf-sewing-cloak-hood-06-basted.jpg
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THEN - once you're happy, run a nice tight straight seam about 3/16" back from the whipped edges of fabric. You want this seam to be pretty even and smooth: it's the seam that will be against your neck.
Ideally none of your earlier whip stitches cross this line. If they do, no worries: snip them back once your straight seam is done.
merf-sewing-cloak-hood-07-stitched.jpg
merf-sewing-cloak-hood-07-stitched.jpg (43.91 KiB) Viewed 6214 times
If you put the cloak on now, you should have a nice smooth seam to the inside, and that big ugly whipped mess around the outside of the neck.
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Re: stitching a hood to a cloak body, photos how-to

Post by Elleth »

Step seven - flip the hood back the other way out and run a stab stitch just back from the edge. Here's where you "train" the cloak to sit the right way. If you did gathers, here's your chance to even them out as you go.

NOTE: You're basically doing the same thing as on the lasdhir here, and the same warning about pressing the seam open as you go applies here:
http://middleearthrangers.org/forum/vie ... 185#p35081
merf-sewing-cloak-hood-08-flipped-stitched.jpg
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Re: stitching a hood to a cloak body, photos how-to

Post by Elleth »

Step eight: now we do another stich, a bit back from the first.

This one traps all that hemmed-and-whipped messy seam inside a nice clean channel. It's also your last chance to make any gathers line up nice and smooth:
merf-sewing-cloak-hood-09-second-seam.jpg
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Re: stitching a hood to a cloak body, photos how-to

Post by Elleth »

Aaaaand we're done! When you put the cloak on and pull up the hood, you shouldn't see any of that messy seam now. If you do, no problem - just run another seam a bit further back from the edge and it'll clean right up:
merf-sewing-cloak-hood-10-finished-back.jpg
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Re: stitching a hood to a cloak body, photos how-to

Post by Ghostsoldier »

This is some awesome stuff! Thanks for the in-depth tutorial, Elleth! :P

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Re: stitching a hood to a cloak body, photos how-to

Post by Iodo »

Nice information, thanks a lot :P although (due to lack of time) the cloak for my dad is now looking like it'll be a birthday present :lol:
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Re: stitching a hood to a cloak body, photos how-to

Post by Manveruon »

Fantastic! Thanks so much for this step-by-step guide! I’m going to share it on our Misty Mountain Rangers FB group too, because I feel like a number of folks there could certainly benefit from it!
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Re: stitching a hood to a cloak body, photos how-to

Post by Greg »

Very nicely done and documented. Always nice to see Andy’s stuff being valued and put to use.
Now the sword shall come from under the cloak.
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