This handout accompanies a course on making headdresses commonly worn by women in the 14th century.

1. Frilled and Fretted Veils
The Latest Fashion Rage
(c. 1350-1410)

2. You may have seen them around. Those ornate looking
veils some "people" are starting to sport. Hopefully, if you
are here it is because you want one too - or at least, you
want to consider…
How Hard Is It?
This short class is designed to show you through hands-on
demonstration the steps to making two types of veils: one
fretted and one frilled. We will not be actually making a full veil,
due to time limitations, however there will be stations showing
each step of the process to allow class involvement. Depending
on the number of students perhaps we will be able to practice
making either a fretted or a frilled veil as well.

3. Materials
o linen
o linen thread (cotton, silk or polyester will work, but may change color over time)
o needle
o short pins (metal headed type)
o iron
o scissors (small are better)
o dowels or blocks of wood (for fretwork)
o starch
o water
This is designed to be as period as you want it to be - or not. You could use something besides linen, I don't know how it will hold up
in time. I know of one woman who used cotton to make hers, and another used silk. I generally use the thinnest linen I can find, and it
worked great. I used the same type of linen and tried to duplicate a veil done by Christina de Huntington and my veil would not
support itself without starching. I think she must have had access to a heavier linen. I am working on two more - one in a thin cotton
gauze and another in a thin habotai silk. I have also spoken to someone who wants to use a heavy, damask linen.

4. Dowel Shape
Everyone may not want the same veil shape. It was true in period, and it is just as true today. In period imagery I have seen both
diamond and wavy (or teardrop, or S-shaped) fretworks, and you can make either of these too. I used pre-made dowels because they
were cheap, but if you were serious about authenticity, you could make your own - and of your own shape. This could take a long
time, as a veil can take more than a hundred dowels.
Some individuals who have made these fretwork veils did not use a shape to hold everything in place as it was carefully measured and
later starched. I chose to use a shape because it is vastly faster the first time you ever make a fretted veil. Also, you do not need to
worry about misshaped boxes/circles because they are all the same. I have since made two that were measured, and you can definitely
tell if the measurements are off at all - in case you were wondering that.
Dowel-Less Veils
If you are good at measuring, and pinning - maybe you would prefer a dowel-less shape. I have found a number of short-cuts for doing
it this way, if that is how you want it. I actually really like doing a diamond veils, they are fun to do and the results are quick to show.
Also, measuring is very easy for a dowel-less shape. If you are not, or you want a project easy to leave in your bag, or you have never
done something like this before, try it the doweled way first. It is a good way to get a grasp on what is happening.
Also, some veils were woven in period, not sewn. There are more woven veils the further into the 15th century you go. I have not tried
my hand at this, but I would love to see some that were woven. Some others who have done assorted dowel-less veils or woven veils
are below:
Isis Sturtewagen - http://www.medievalsilkwork.com/
Eva Doin - http://evavano.dreamwidth.org/tag/veils
Christina de Huntington - https://dehuntington.wordpress.com/2012/06/03/the-fretwork-veil/ (She does use shaping blocks when
starching though)
Katherine C-G - http://koshka-the-cat.blogspot.com/2014/01/frilled-veil-part-one.html (She marked the veil to match the shaping
dowels, which required trial and error)

5. Starch (Hands-On)
I have done an entire section of research on starching. I would suggest using a wheat starch, and the recipe I use is 2t water to 1 c.
starch ratio. This will get you a few days out of the starching at least. There are several recipes on how to obtain your own wheat
starch, and these are both time consuming and often nasty. This is the pretty period, and if you use a commercially produced wheat
starch it will not smell the way a longer-sitting fermented wheat starch does. Starch makes the fretwork veils awesome, and may be
necessary on big, fluffy frilled veils.
You can get commercial wheat starch online through Amazon, or at your local Asian market. If you have a wheat allergy, you could
also use rice (use a rice glue recipe), potato starch or corn starch. These last two are commercially available. Potato starch is whiter
thus superior to corn starch in my opinion.
Prepping the Fabric (#1-4)
These steps are the same no matter what type of sewn veil you are making whether teardrop, diamond or frilled. The first thing is
ironing, ironing, ironing. I iron literally every step during the prepping. I never used to iron, and Princess Etheldreda Ivelchyld of the
East Kingdom really showed me what the difference is. Basically, things that are ironed have clean, crisp edges when finished - things
that aren't, don’t. Because a veil is on your face, it is the first thing people will see when you walk by - you want it to look clean and
crisp.
Next - measuring a cutting line. There are two ways to do this. First, if you have a good set-up, you can simply mark at your desired
length across the linen and cut with a rotary cutter. I do not have a good set up, and like to sew while watching movies. This is a not
good method for that. So here is a different choice. Along one end of the fabric measure down to your desired length and hold it there.
Now find a long-running thread and slip a pin in to the fabric to draw just that thread out of the weave. Put down the measuring tape,
and with either this pin or another pin pull out that thread until it is easy to grasp with your fingers. Now slowly draw this thread out,
gathering the linen around it close. When you reach an end, snip it out. Eventually, you will remove this single entire thread this way.
About length: my length is about 8 cm seems to be good for most things when you need to have a seam at the front of the veil, I think
this is about 2 inches, for those who prefer inches. I now like cm for doing veils because I know 1 cm is a single folded seam, so I can

6. measure my seams very accurately. I did some fretwork veil lengths that were 6cm, and they did not look good to me. Maybe they
would be better for smaller faces? Most others are strips that are at least 8cm to start. Try out 8cm and go from there.
The basic prep for all of the fabric is to create your basic seam line. How I do this depends on my location, time and lighting. Also, I
have gotten a lot better at doing this after doing 4 veil lengths. The easiest way I have heard is to also pull out a thread at 1cm for the
seam line. This trick came from Catherin Ahlen. Now, I just fold it and iron it at 1cm, which is very easy to eye-ball and folds well.
First I mark it on each side to know where the line should be, and that makes it pretty fast.
If you are doing a fretwork veil, you will then fold the fabric on the short side to the line, iron and fold again to protect and seal the
edge. Iron once more and this piece of linen is ready to be sewn.
If you are doing a short, tight frilled veil, you will need a 1cm line on each side of the fabric and will fold it only once on each side.
The sew line will ultimately hide the unfinished edge of the fabric, so that is why you don't need to do it twice. Here is a trick from my
first frilled veil, by the way - use a selvage end. I was making a linen underdress, and several pairs of men's underwear and made the
strips for this veil at the same time, by cutting something like 300 inches of selvage from either side of my fabric. It made the fabric
thinner for making my dress, but I did not have to sew a seam line on. This saves so much time.
Determining the right amount for a frilled veil is perhaps the hardest type of veil to measure for. Because you will be gathering the
fabric into a band, how much you need depends largely on how long you want it and how tight you want it to be gathered. I used 300
inches of selvage for my first one and 5 rows of 60" linen for those since. Wide-layered frilled bands will use different amounts,
because you do not draw them as tight together since there are so many more layers.
I also figured out how to measure how much you need for a doweled veil. Diamond veils are based on many layers of linen, so these
only need to be the length you want when finished - making them the easiest to measure of the veils I have done.
Measuring For Doweled Veil (#8)
Using a scrap of linen, begin to wrap dowels into it, as we learn later. This is a good way to practice the skill too! Go 2 inches,
checking it as you go on a tape. Then, making a mark to know where you started and ended it, remove and unpin the doweled linen,
leaving only the first and last marks. This length tells you how long you need for 2 inches (imagine this length is 8 inches). Decide
how long you want your veil to be when finished, say 24 inches. Divide this in half (because you did 2 inches of test fabric). Multiply

7. this number by your unfurled length (12 x 8). This tells you about how much you will need for your veil - which in our example is 96
inches.
Making the Veils!
Here the steps are pretty much the same as described by Cathrin Ahlen in her two tutorials on veil construction. There are no real
tricks to the sewing. One thing to do early on is to flat-fell seam or roll-edge seam the pieces of linen together if you did not use the
selvage ends, because when you get started on the hemming it will slow you down to have to stop and add a piece then. Remember,
lots of little stitches looks the best! Another thing is - if you are doing a frilled veil, use long selvage ends for a quick project that takes
very little time.
In some of my examples in class, I used a back stitch, in others I used a running stitch and some of them I used a couch stitch. These
all seem to work fine, but on the teardrop and diamond fretwork veils you can see the stitches more with a running or back stitch. If
you are good at hand sewing, use a blind stitch. I should have done that, because it would make for a nicer finished edge, but I am fast
at the couch stitch, and it is nearly invisible from the front.

9. Frilled Veil ((#5-7)
I suggest using a selvage end for frilled veils. It is pretty, clean and less work. To do it this way, fold your lengths of fabric in half.
Take the folded piece and run two running stitches down the length of the strip. However far "down" from the seamed end decides
how wide the ruffles will be. The stitches can be as close or as far apart as you want. Different spacing leads to different ruffles when
finished.
Once the two lines of running stitches are finished, pull them together - gather them. Tie them shut when they reach the desired ruffle-
ness. Take another band of fabric. This band does not need to be sewn, but does need to have been pressed. Pin this band to the ruffle
band along the non-selvage edge (the bottom). It forms the base that is pinned to veils and holds the ruffles together. Using tiny
stitches, sew the band in place.
The final step is to separate the double-ruffled fabric, thus creating the actual ruffles. If the ruffle was pulled very tight and the ruffles
are fairly small, this ruffle should hold up without any starching. The bigger the ruffle, the more it might need some starching or
fluffing from time to time. My first frilled veil is very tight, and it was challenging to separate the ruffles when I was finished. Looser
veils will be easier to separate.

10. Fretwork Veil (9-13)
For this veil, you will have pressed a seam, rolled it over, and pressed it again on the lengths of linen. Start by hemming the length of
this seam. Next, take a dowel. Wrap the linen band around it. I start fairly close to the end of the linen band. Others start in the middle.
It doesn't really matter where you start. I try to start in a place where I will be able to fold over and hide the end of the linen band in
the veil as I go - that is the important part.
Pin this dowel in tightly against the fabric. Holding it in your dominant hand, add another dowel, continuing to wrap the band around
it. This time, the band should not fully wrap it - but should look more like a tear drop. The first few are the hardest. Pin it tightly
against so that the fabric is pinned against the first dowel. Repeat several more times. There is a trick of getting the pins to stay in the
fabric as you go.
I like the little headed metal pins because I can put them the whole way in. I also don't feel sad if they bend against the dowel as I push
them in to make them come back out. I do as many as I can at a go - keep pinning and wrapping. Because they are tight against the
dowels, the teardrops shouldn't come out or fall apart. When I reach each end, I fold the fabric over to hide the end when I sew it.
Next, remove all of the dowels, except the last two or three (if you have more to wrap and pin). This is pretty much what it will look
like when it is finished! To sew finished teardrops, use a whip stitch. Start wherever you want. Pull the thread in through the seam side
to help hide the knot. Whip stitch around where the fabric is pinned two or three times. Run the thread through the seam to come out
by the next pin. In this method, you can keep going through the veil until you run out of thread, and the thread will only be visible
where you whip stitch it.
This is the point where you should also finish the two ends to complete the band. Try it on, it will inspire you to finish it! Once you
have finished making your band you need to lay it out and pleat it so that it will still look like teardrops when you are done. I try to
fold the teardrops against each other like little accordion books. Pin it the whole way as you go. If you want, sew the pleats down. I do
- it does make the last step easier.
Whether you sewed the pleats or not, now you need one more band - the length of the pleated band, and prepared the same way as for
a frilled veil. Pin this band into place along the pleated end of the band. You can go as far forward or as far back as you want here. I
try to leave as much teardrop showing as possible. I think it looks better. Sew the band down!

11. Once the band is sewn down, the veil band is finished. You can sew it or pin it to a veil, and if you want to get crazy and make more
go ahead. I will say, do not sew two bands together that you have made this way, because they do no stay open when you try to starch
the veil. Leave them separate and just pin several bands to your veil. Starching the veil is important because otherwise it will look flat.
Use your preferred starch, making sure to get the entire veil nice and wet. Replace the dowels into the veil and let it almost fully dry.
Remove the dowels and pin the veil straight against something to hang dry the rest of the way. I found that if I left the dowels in until
the veil was dried I couldn't get the dowels out.
You can use the selvage end for the fretwork veil as well- however the sewing lines between your whip-stitches will be visible. There
is documentation of colored veil ends, so you could make a selvage-end colored fretwork veil using embroidery floss. If you want just
a white veil, you will have to hem the front of the veil to hide the sewing.

12. References
Cathrin Åhlén - http://katafalk.wordpress.com/2013/08/23/starched-frilled-veil/
- Her veil tutorial really inspired me to start upgrading my headwear. Also, she got me to inadvertently learn to use the meter
measuring system for small things, and I have started to find it is much easier when measuring seam allowances. Her tutorials are so
simple that there is little to do to improve on them, except my trick of using selvage edges! Thank you Cathrin!
Isis Sturtewagen - http://www.medievalsilkwork.com/2010/03/northern-german-frilled-veil-part-i.html
- Her blog is pretty much a regular for me. It's been a wonderful inspiration to sit down and improve my sewing skills, stop
using a sewing machine, and start learning how to fix my garb to make it more period appropriate. Her work on veils and headdresses
is awesome, and thorough, and provides more primary and secondary references than you will need for anything. Also, she has done
professional level papers on the subject of veils, so she may well be *the* world-wide kruseler expert. Read her work!
Images of Stitches came from: http://www.ia470.com/wardrobe/stitches.html
Images of some veils came from Mervi at http://hibernaatio.blogspot.com/2013/09/royheloita-ronneburgissa-kruseler-veils.html
Other Fretwork and Frilled Veil Replicas I Read or Found
Eva Doin - http://evavano.dreamwidth.org/tag/veils
Christina de Huntington - https://dehuntington.wordpress.com/2012/06/03/the-fretwork-veil/
Katherine C-G - http://koshka-the-cat.blogspot.com/2014/01/frilled-veil-part-one.html
Elina - http://www.neulakko.net/?p=1087
Cailin - http://cailin.blox.pl/2007/01/Especially-for-Machteld-and-Isis-how-Ive-done-my.html