Dateline 7/10/10: I’ve been travelling the last couple of weeks, but I’m back now and working on new projects. A couple of these projects required the drafting of a pattern for a cowl that covers the entire head. I spent the afternoon working on the pattern and have included some pics and have a PDF download available.
I created the pattern first in segments and then revised it into a version with minimal seams. I needed a good, structurally sound cowl that could be made in both stretch and not-so-stretchy materials. So, this was the result:

The segmented version is useful if color-blocking is required (as it would have been with the Fury costume I am still possibly going to be working on) and the one with the minimal seams can be adapted to most other cowl/headgear patterns with some simple reshaping. Here are some pics of the model I assembled as I was working on the pattern to show the final shape:



I then created the second version with the minimal seams and decided to make a rough mock-up of it in some blue faux-leather I had laying around as a test for a Bucky Captain America I’m working on. Here’s how it turned out:


So, some shaping is needed, but the basic shape is there and the pattern is quite functional. There will be a Captain America page in the How It Was Made section soon with more pictures.
I created a PDF of the pattern image above with the images of the model for anyone who’s facing the frustration of having to come up with this type of pattern. Please feel free to download it HERE and I hope it helps. If you use it, let me know how it works!