Super Hero Capes

Super Hero Capes

Our twin grandkids just had their 3 birthday. I was visiting recently and our grandson wanted me to take his feet out of his pyjamas, but leave the top part on... Ooookay, I wondered where that was going?  Is this related to potty training somehow I wondered???  Wrong! He was trying to create a Super Hero cape for himself. Quite ingenious, really.  Of course his twin sister followed suite and baby brother just stared (for now!)
Ever up for a challenge to try something new,  I figured whipping up a couple of simple Super Hero capes on my Janome would be pretty simple…
After a bit of research on line, I found the perfect site:   (www.threadridinghood.com)

http://www.threadridinghood.com/wordpress/made-by-me-monday-super-hero-cape-pattern-tutorial/

There was an easy cape template download there for a mere $2.99. There was even a link to a site  with Superman letters inside the Superman logo shape. Well, all the hard work is done for you, I thought. Yay!

 I bought some solid coloured broadcloth just as the site directions suggested. What luck! It was on sale for half price that week! Wow,  I thought, the quilting goddesses are definitely smiling down on me!
I bought 3 colours, dark blue, bright green and pink.


I quickly traced and cut out the dark blue and the pink for capes for the twins. Should I make inner lining or just  a nice seam around the outside?

"Well, you saved on the fabric so why not do as the directions say",  I thought to myself, (and stop "re-inventing the wheel" so to speak!)
I was so excited about how the capes would turn out I jumped to the logo directions. I had some red felt and yellow fabric for the logo backgrounds, plus the double sided webbing (Steam- a Seam 2). I started in on the H logo.

 In my excitement to get going I had skipped a step , not crucial, I could go back and do it, but I ended up having to cut the spaces around the H twice, once with just the red felt and again with it attached to the webbing, tedious extra work…

The letter C logo went a lot faster since it had less tiny spaces to cut out and I did the steps in the right order, tracing only once.

I was super careful about using a pressing cloth when pressing the logo to its yellow background with the webbing and then onto the back of the outer cape, 3 inches down from the neckline, centred equadistant from the sides. The H logo looked great on the dark blue!   But... the cape looked a bit too short!   I had made the 4T template size (our twins are 3 years old), but I realized it was 3 inches short of the 21 inches I had measured from the backs of the twins' necks to the backs of their knees... Dang!

Luckily I had not ironed on the C logo. What to do about the H logo which was stuck so fast to the short blue cape???
I got out the blue broadcloth, did some fancy re-folding and managed to trace another template, 21 inches long this time, (only just!) out of the leftovers! Yes, the quilt goddesses really were smiling on me. ( I pushed aside the thought that if they had been paying better attention to begin with, I would have done it correctly the first time!)

Next:
I took my trusty scissors and cut the H logo off the small blue cape, leaving a hole in the back, so it now became a mere scrap...
I re-folded the pink broadcloth, too and, yes, my luck was holding! I had enough to cut a new longer (21") pink cape., with very little to spare. :)

Green cape and lining for Little T's Super hero Cape

I pressed the C logo onto the cape with the iron, then proceeded to stitch the logo on just for good measure. That turned out to be a bit of a hassle! The thread kept breaking and I realized what the problem was: The needle was going through the logo, and through 2 layers of gummy webbing which was making a blob of thread stick to the needle. Yikes! What next, I thought!

Had to clean the needle well between stitching parts of the logo and had to re-thread the needle several times. (This is where the better quality Mettler silk finish thread stood out in comparison to the cheaper Gutermann thread, which kept breaking. )
I will have to re-think this webbing process when I make Little T's Logo…

Little T's green Super Hero cape without the logo

I sandwiched the lining with the cape (sewed them right sides together with a 6 inch "hole" left at the bottom. I clipped all the curves and turned the capes right side out! Nice!

 Next to last step was to sew a 1/4 inch seam all around each cape, catching the opening part at the cape bottoms, which I had pressed inward.
Last, I sewed a 1 inch piece of velcro onto the neck ends.
Wow! I am so pleased with how well they turned out! :D

One year old Little T. LOVE this happy, independent little guy! :)