This linen cap is a very simple one, suitable for the late 18th and early nineteenth centuries. It was entirely hand-stitched from scraps of linen left over from a chemise. The fabric is from fabrics-store.com, and is their ILO20 bleached linen.

The cap has three pieces – the back section, a horseshoe-ish shape; the main part, a straight rectangle, and a narrow frill. It ended up being a little large, but if I had longer hair arranged at the back of my head, that would take up some of the space. I put a gathering thread around the bottom of the cap, which shapes it around the neck and the face.

Many caps of this period were more decorative, with lace and ribbons and finer frills, but this style is appropriate for a working woman or a Quaker woman’s plain dress, or for wearing under a bonnet.