How to make a Medieval Hair Braids Hair Piece

In medieval times, hair braiding was popular, and many attractive hair styles could be achieved with hair braiding. However, such elaborate braided hairstyles were usually worn by the rich, who had a lady in waiting or a servant to style their hair for them. If you don’t have a lady in waiting but want to achieve the medieval braided hair look, its probably best if you make yourself a braided hair piece that you can slip onto your head a bit like a hat or a wig, and instantly have the latest medieval fashionable hair do.

To make a Medieval Hair Braids Hair Piece you will need,

3x Platted Alice bands or hair bands, (the ones with two plats,) in a colour that matches your own hair,
Needle and thread
Fascinators,
Dress making pins, the ones with coloured beads are best because they are nicely visible in the hair braids.

To start with you need to join two of the hair bands together so that there are 4 plats that will go across your head. Snip the elastic out of one hair band and sew the end of the plats to the main hair band.

The next part is easier if you get someone else with a similar sized head to wear the hair band, Or if you wear it and ask someone else to do the pinning for you. The model should have their hair loose, so any pins wont attached the braids to their hair.

Put the 4 braided hair band on the models head, and space out the braids so that the lie evenly between the forehead and the crown of the head. If the braid at the crown is too long and wont lie flat, make a little loop out of the excess and lay inwards towards the forehead. Pin in place without stabbing the models head.

Next you need to dismantle the final hair band, taking everything off so that you are just left with braids. The ends of the braids should be melted together, if you disturb the ends, sew them back together with some similar coloured cotton.

Tuck one end of the loose braid behind one side of the surplus loop braid. The end should be hidden behind. Then bring the loose braid forward in a downward angle crossing over all of the main braids on the head, then take the braid down in front of the first braid in the set of four and turn at the ear again crossing over all the four main braids. Then on the back behind the forth braid, travel back up to the starting point and tuck the end of the braid behind another to hide it. Where the loose braid crosses other braids, pin it in place. Repeat this process on the other side to match.

Remove the hair piece carefully from the models head. Then sew the braids together where ever there is a pin. Keep the stitches small so that you can’t see them.

Now you can add fascinators to the braids. Bear in mind, that if you are wearing a tiara, you probably need to cluster the fascinators behind the ear, but if you don’t have any medieval head gear, you can add the fascinators around the top and front of the hair piece.

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