Used in the old days to warm the head while sleeping, preserve hairstyles and isolate from light and noise sources, nightcaps have now become an exotic, rarely used piece of a sleeping suit, which, however, can be made by hand.
One-sided nightcap
The pattern of a nightcap for sleeping is based on an isosceles triangle with a rounded base, the size of which is equal to the half-girth of the head. The height of the triangle can be arbitrary and depends on the desired length of the narrow, hanging part of the hood. If the dimensions of the head are not known, then the back of the finished product can be made with an elastic band or with ties.
The pattern is placed on a cut of natural fabric folded in half, outlined along the contour, leaving about 5-7 mm for seam allowances. The side parts of the cap are stitched with a straight machine stitch, the seams are processed with an overlock and carefully smoothed. The bottom of the finished product is folded over and stitched on a machine using a zigzag or manual blind stitch. If necessary, a narrow string is threaded through the seam, with which you can adjust the size. The top of the cap is decorated with a fluffy pom-pom in the color of the main fabric.
Reversible nightcap
To sew a double-sided nightcap, you will need about a meter of any warm, comfortable fabric and the same amount of cotton material. As the basis of the pattern, a truncated cone is used, the base of which corresponds to half the measurement of the head circumference. The height of the cone can be any - depending on how long you want to get the narrow part of the cap. Ancient caps were cut out so that the narrow part could act as a scarf and cover the neck.
From each type of fabric, two parts are cut out, taking into account seam allowances of about 6-8 mm. Details made of warm and light fabric are folded with the front sides inward, stitched along the sides, all seams are carefully ironed out. After that, the double-sided blanks are stitched from the seamy side along the contour, leaving a small hole at the very top of the headdress. To decorate the bottom of the nightcap, 3-5 cm of the edge section is folded either outward or inward and hemmed with a blind seam.
To give a complete resemblance to the classic sleep cap, the finished product is decorated with a brush: strips 10-15 cm long, about 7-8 cm wide are cut out of both fabrics and cut into them in the form of a fringe. After that, both strips are superimposed on each other, folded into a small roll and, pulling together, sew the base.
The resulting brush is inserted into the unsewn hole in the narrow part of the cap and sewn up with inconspicuous stitches. If desired, the brush can be replaced with a pom-pom or not to decorate the cap with either one or the other, simply by sewing all the details of the cap along the contour and processing the bottom of the finished product.
