If you are assembling a circle cloak out of kites, the apex of the cloak is a real clash of seams. It is easiest to make a neck opening and avoid the apex entirely. You may be constrained by fashion to do otherwise. Fake it. Simply make a slow dip in from the edge of the cloak, so you pass the apex at a distance of an inch or two. (Fig. 15) Then proceed as in making cloaks with neck openings. You can line the cloak (it's a bit harder to hang it up to sag, but you can manage). You can use a facing. Or you can use a collar, though with this sort of cloak it ends up looking rather like lapels. A shoulder capelet does not go over well as a part of this style.

I have tried to trim cloaks such as this with ribbons, and it does not work well unless the ribbon is very narrow indeed. The curve of the hem is too strong, even in a large cloak, and the inner side of the ribbon will wrinkle up. The same problem is found if you try to use a self-fabric lining several inches up from the hem (to make it look neat until the lining proper covers things up). The answer is obvious: cut pieces of cloth with curvature to match the part of the cloak you are decorating. This can be done rather efficiently, as per fig. 16. When you want a self-lining, it is even easier. Simply make your cloak about 4" too long. When you trim it to length, you will have a 4" width of material with just the right curve lying on the floor next to the cloak itself. Turn one of the two over, and pin them together good sides facing. Sew and turn, overstitch, and blind-stitch the upper edge of the lining in place.

And, good gentles, I believe that about covers the subject. The subject being, of course, yourself and the rest of your garb.

When I presented an earlier version of this article at a Needle Arts symposium, I was asked if this were, in fact, a period way of cutting cloth.

It seems very likely it is. Clothes found in a grave at Herjolfsnes, Greenland, are cut in a similar manner. (See attached figure, taken from Kohler's A History of Costume, Dover edition.)

But perhaps the strongest argument is one of economics. Not only is this an efficient method of cutting cloth, it becomes more efficient as the cloth gets narrower. While hand-sewing is laborious, it is easy compared to hand-weaving; any method that economized on the weaving at the expense of a few extra seams would be used - perhaps not universally, but used.

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