Hand-sewing a traditional Baker's Cap.

by James K. Sayre

Having been baking my own homemade bread for many years, it suddenly dawned on me in the middle of a late morning baking session that I needed to have a traditional Baker's Cap. I searched the internet for a free pattern for a baker's cap, but could not easily find one, so I decided to design and sew my own cap. I checked on images of various versions of baker's caps and decided that it would not be that hard to design and sew one.

Since our head are basically round or oval-shaped when viewed from above, I decided that the main piece or crown-piece would be a circle of fabric about two feet in diameter. The lower band would be made from a rectangle of fabric about two feet long and about eight inches wide. Since traditional baker's caps are usually white and probably made from cotton fabric, I used something close, some white rayon fabric pieces that were gathering dust around the house.

To cut a circular piece of fabric twenty-four inches in diameter, start with a square piece that is two feet by two feet. Fold it into quarters and then roughly trace a 90 degree quarter of a circle along the outer edges of the folded square piece. Sketch with a pencil or whatever is handy; it doesn't have to be exact. Then cut along the lines.

Take the rectangular bottom piece and fold it lengthwise and then fold in the two long edges about half an inch to create a nice edge seam.

Now comes the interesting part: attaching the circular crown- piece to the rectangular bottom piece. A daunting notion to early bakers no doubt. The trick is to evenly gather the edges of the top circular piece in such a way as to match the folded over edges of the bottom piece. If you have a sewing machine, you could sew a basting (wide) stitch around the circumference of the circular piece, and then pull on the ends of the thread to effect the gathering.

However, hand sewers can just measure and gather and then pin the two pieces together. After you have gathered and pinned the two pieces into what vaguely resembles a baker's cap, then you attach the two pieces by sewing them together with a large needle with some heavy cotton thread. It may take a couple of hours, but the result will be your own unique baker's cap when you have finished. Try it on for size several times before the final stitching. The final form of the attachment of the end seam can be folded over or just tacked down, but since it is in the back of the cap, it will be little noticed.

Now you can bake bread while wearing your own official Baker's Cap.

End.

This web page was recently created by James Sayre.

Contact author James K. Sayre at sayresayre@yahoo.com. Author's Email: sayresayre@yahoo.com

Web page last updated on 24 March 2006