Capes to the rescue - A superhero and a girly cape

Sprog was invited to yet another party. Should anyone be reading all of this blog they will have started to notice a theme. This time was for a girl turning 4, and her little brother turning 2. Widget came along too as he knows birthday boy.

I didn't know anything about either kid. Sprog says he doesn't play with birthday girl, but the teachers at preschool assured me she was a girly-girl so I went for my fallback of something pink and sparkly. I used the same pattern as the last time I made a cape, but this time the fabric was both pink and sparkly, rather than pink with a sparkly overlay. I finished the seams by flat felling them, then trimmed with inch-wide ribbon. The ribbon was laid around the edge of the cape first. I then used a separate piece around the hood, with about 30cm/12in excess on each end to use as the tie.

  

Birthday Girl opened it, put it on, said she loved it, then dashed away to play dragging Sprog with her. 

Little brother Birthday Boy is another kid I know very little of, but having two little boys I was at less of a loss. Superheroes are always popular, so another cape was planned. I left my options open and went fabric shopping. I ended up with some plain black cotton, and a red velour with spiderwebs all over it. With some yellow fabric I had already, I planned a reversible Spiderman/Batman cape.

I used the Superkid cape pattern from Peekaboo patterns as my base, first cutting out the cape, then using the scraps for the bat shape. Using a Bat Signal image I found using Google,  I traced the bat onto double sided interfacing and ironed it on, then cut, ironing the shape onto yellow before stitching round the edges with a black zig-zag. 

If you look closely you can see a yellow bat shape.

I backed the yellow with single sided interfacing to strengthen it,  cut the oval about 15mm from the edge of the bat, pinned it in place, then used yellow thread to zigzag the outer curve. You could use double sided interfacing again, but I was running low, and it was an easy shape to sew in place anyway. 

Before assembling the two sides I put a little interfacing in the ends of the straps to stabilise where the popper was going to go. 

Then it was just a matter of sew it all together, turn, topstich the edges and attach the popper. Sprog modelled it for me and it was ready to go.

I bought way too much fabric, so I think Sprog's Batman mad bestie might be getting something similar for his birthday next month.

Little Pink Riding Hood

Sprog was invited to a birthday party for one of the girls at preschool. I don't know her so I asked their teachers and was told that she is a girly girl. I decided to make something for her, a pink cape, and because I could, with a hood. I did a bit of googling and came across the Red Riding Hood cape from Fleecefun.com. I like working with fleece and fleece from the local emporium is cheap. Double win!

I also bought a length of pink sparkly gauze and some wide write ribbon. The basic cape is an easy sew. I made it more difficult by adding the gauze layer. The gauze moved a lot as I sewed. If I was to do it again, and I've had a request, I would cut the gauze a bit larger and baste the fleece edges in place before sewing seams to ensure  it didn't bunch during assembly. I finished all the edges with the white ribbon, and also used it over the join between hood and cape to make a clean seam, then extended it into a tying ribbon around the neck.

Sprog wouldn't model this one for me, (who knew he was so entrenched in gender traditions) so I made do.


The birthday girl liked it, the mother thought it was brilliant, and another mother has requested one!

Pink and Sparkly for the win!