Hood Scarf

For all of your post-apocalyptic (or cosplaying) needs, a pattern for a very simple hood-scarf.

This is a zero-waste pattern, resulting in a square hood.

It is a quick and easy project, suitable for handsewing even with the limited kit you’ve been able to grab just before the Fall of Civilization (finding the materials is left as an exercise to the reader), but can also be mostly machine sewn.

Materials

Fabric

• 70 - 80 cm of a light to mid weight fabric; wool, silk or linen are good choices, on a scale from cold to warm weather.

Two scarves of the same size, at least 30 cm wide and 120 cm long can also be used: in this case there won’t be a need to hem the long edges.

Notions

• Sewing thread to match the fabric;

• optional: thicker thread to make a thread bar.

Pattern

Measure around your head, at the height of the forehead, and around the face from the top of the head to the chin; take the biggest measurement and divide it by two: this is the minimum width of the scarf, if you want a deeper hood add maybe a cm or two. This will probably be somewhere between 30 and 35 cm.

Cut two rectangles of fabric as high as the measurement above plus 2-4 cm for hemming allowance and using the full width of the fabric, keeping the selvedges.

Instructions

Put the two pieces right sides together and sew one short edge with a running backstitch (by hand) or by machine. Press open.

Tip

Optionally you may want to curve down the seam a little towards the back to avoid a sharp point.

Hem the long sides: fold them down twice towards the wrong sides, sew with a hemstitch by hand or topstitch by machine.

Fold the scarf in half, right sides together; starting from the top measure the width of the scarf and whipstitch the back seam for that length.

Tip

This last seam is easier to do by hand; if you want to use a machine you may want to lay the two halves side by side and topstitch with a zig-zag stitch, but the area near the top seam will be quite fussy.

Tip

Before finishing this last seam with a knot check the hood for fit, and if necessary adapt its length.

Optional but recommended: a short distance from the end of the back seam, make a thread bar between the two free sides to reinforce the weak point at the end of the seam.

Gallery

The scarf worn as in the opening picture, seen from the back.

To keep the scarf wrapped around the face like this I’ve used two pins at around cheek height and one around shoulder height on my left (right side of the picture).

See Also