The headdress

I made this horned thing as part of the hats and headdresses class at costuming school. The design was inspired by a  LARP group some of my friends created which is a clan of recluse amazon-like women that live close to nature and practice black magic. The shape of the headdress is inspired by bighorn sheep.

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The design was also a way of testing the techniques: I steamed a felt hood into the shape of my head, and then attached the tubular horsehair around a few strands of hat wire. The idea was to test how stiff everything had to be to hold up the horns, which turned out to be quite lightweight, and the ears, which are heavier because there are 2 layers of leather.

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Then, I did a bunch of hand stitching to cover up the base of the horns and ears with leftover felt, and then with some black lace. I cut a hole on the crown of the head to fit my hair through, added elastic to the back, and had fun with embellishments.

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One thing that I learned in the making process is that will all of the stitching, the headdress became a bit tighter around my head, and the fit is not quite as good as before. If I could do it over again, I would probably shape the felt on a larger head shape, and I wouldn't stitch it up so much as it is probably much too secure.

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The costume

I made a tunic out of thick linen with extra long sleeves and a button up neck. It is meant as a base to put a vest over it, but it looks good and I never got around to making the vest. Instead, I made this faux fur waist cincher from a strip of fur from the hood of a winter coat. Finally, I made the overskirt by tearing up a strip of fabric.

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The leather capelet is from Epic Armoury, the wine-red woolen skirt is from Mytholon, and the very beautiful medieval belt is from PeraPeris.

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