For years I used a plain piece of blackish fabric, medium weight. The better part of my 4x5 work was indoors; the cloth was adequate. When I returned to 4x5 several years ago, I bought two 1.3-yard lengths of ripstop nylon from the fabric store, one black, one white. My wife sewed them together for me. Outdoors, a fair amount of light came through, and the slipperiness of the cloth plus static led me to relegate it to some other potential use, maybe reflector and light-subtraction for my portraiture.
Nearly three years ago, at a 4x5 meetup, one fellow was using a black T-shirt -- head in the neck hole and the shirt pulled up over for use, and retracted to "collaring" when not. I went out and bought an extra large black T and have used it since. Neither elegant, nor cool in the sun, nor as efficient as some in blocking light, not water resistant (though I could get some 3M spray), but the price was good, and it works for me, although finding the right edge to pull over my head from "collar storage" is a problem I need to solve. I have tried putting the head hole over the camera; I'm not settled on whether or not it succeeds any better, and the single layer doesn't always cut the light adequately, while both layers generally do.
Most of my work is indoors. In my shoulder bag, the T-shirt nicely cradles my camera, acting as extra padding, especially for the ground glass.
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