My First Arming Cap

I started with wearing nothing on my head but the helm.  Then someone noticed me constantly wiping sweat from myface and recommended an arming cap.  I didn’t know how to make one.  So I went without.  Then I saw fighters wearing these UnderArmor caps, and they seemed to like them.  I asked someone how they felt about them, and they said it kept their head cooler, and they helped to keep the sweat from their eyes.  Sounds great!  Sign me up.  So Erika bought me one.  And I wore it a couple of times, and lost it for a while on accident, then I caught sight of a photo of me in it and then I lost it on purpose.  I haven’t worn it since.  It kept sliding off of my head and I would forget to put it on.  Whatever.

I finally decided that I should make one a proper arming cap.  With the amazing and wonderful assistance of Celeste Sugarbaker, she helped me cut a pattern.  I took that pattern, and cut out four panels of the light linen that I bought last summer.  It’s the same fabric I used for the shirt that I have paired with my doublet.  That stuff feels awesome.  Anyways, I put two layers of that fabric together to make the cap.

Once this was put together, I then needed some sort of lacing to go with it.  I remembered a couple of years ago trying to make a lace to tie something closed.  Pain in my ass…so Erika took over.  Turned out to be just as much a pain in her ass too.  So I tried to think of something different.  While I was by no means trying to go out of my way to make this whole thing by hand, I also wanted to keep it in that spirit at least.  No buying lacing.  So, I grabbed up a kumihimo wheel, and started making some cord.   I figured this would be small and low profile, but strong enough to hold up under my helm.  And voila!

I sewed this into the base of the cap and closed this up.  I haven’t tried it yet at practice, but come Monday  I am telling you.

Thanks to Celeste and Carina for the help on this.