The original cap was pleated down to 2 or 3 cm (depending upon the side) with 1 mm pleats 2-3 mm deep. It was here I hit a proper snag. It would probably have been easier to have pleated here without the edge being hemmed, and I could have gotten my pleats smaller had I unpicked that seam, as the bulk of the hemming kept the fabric from getting as small as it could have been. I decided not to do that, though, and so I managed to get my 28 cm down to 6 instead. ( I'm going to live with that decision. )

As of yesterday morning, I still found the weaving part of the interlaced insertion stitch pretty terrifying, but I think I've worked it out. This seam has been a learning process, but as the embroiderer of Birgitta's Cap missed stitches, too, I didn't feel too much pressure to create perfection. This was compounded by the fact that no set of instructions that I could find for creating the interlace part of the insertion stitch ever showed what to do if you had more than two intersections to weave around, so I was winging it a lot of the time. Assuming that the goal was to create an over-under woven structure, I think I did pretty well. It's not always even, as I would sometimes discover partway down a row that I'd not been picking up an "under" stitch from the back of the woven structure, but right at the top of my head I think it all looks best--most even, most complete interlacing.

Oh, and lick your thread. Seriously. Linen frays as you work with it, and if you wet it like you do when you're spinning, it maintains cohesion much better than otherwise. I wish I'd known this while I was working the initial herringbone stitch, as it'd have saved me some worry and heartache over the integrity of the finished piece.

( I would never recommend this stitch for beginning embroiderers, but brave intermediates, maybe. )

I just dug out the car, so it'd be easier to extricate tomorrow morning after the ploughs come through. The snow was knee-deep, and both my hair and jumper had iced over by the time I was done.

Thank you, Mom, for the awesome silk underwear you got me in college. It came in very useful today.

I've been planning this project for a while, so I'd made some queries of med_embroidery for advice on going about getting the interlaced herringbone insertion stitch for the centre seam of the Birgitta Cap to ( less wonky than it might have otherwise. )

...so like everybody else from the Appalachians east and north of Virginia or so, we have snow. We have a lot of snow. And it's supposed to keep snowing until tomorrow morning.

This is awesome because I don't have to be out in it.

I had an abortive attempt last night with a first version of the fit, but I think I have it, now. I consulted with a Flickr contact, Laurel, who's done her own version, about what she did and would have done differently, and ( I think this may be a useful way to attempt to reconstruct the Birgitta Cap. )