Two capes

My last couple of makes of 2014 were selfless sews and my first makes of 2015 are also selfless.

Firstly this, which was actually a Christmas present that never made it on time, so I figured I had better prioritise it. A while back, Small Boy casually asked "Mummy, can you sew me a superhero cape? And goggles?" To be fair, I never mentioned to him I was planning to make it as a Christmas present, so he doesn't know it's late, but he had been asking quite a bit, and I had the fabric to make it, so I had no excuses.

I found this tutorial for the cape, which was really straightforward. It literally took less than an hour and a half from start to finish; I fitted both this and breakfast into Baby Boy's morning nap. The trickiest part was sewing round those tight curves at the neck, combined with the lightweight fabric that my machine wanted to chew. I ended up doing one stitch, then pivoting a small degree, one stitch, pivot... and even then it's still not particularly curved, or neat!

The fabric is pongee lining in blue and red. In fact the same blue pongee I used for his Wise Man headdress. At something like £2.99 a metre, it's great stuff for fancy dress! It's a bit easier to sew with than regular poly lining as, due to the fact that it's not shiny, it doesn't slip around too much. It also doesn't fray as much.

On to the "goggles". I'm not exactly sure what he had in mind initially. He still quite often, rather endearingly, gets words confused: recent examples include confusing "awesome" for "moss" (as in "mummy, there is awesome on the ground"), and calling courgettes (zucchini) "tagine". Luckily, regardless of what he had in mind, I managed to persuade him that an Incredibles style mask was what he needed. One quick Google later, and we rustled these up from black felt and 1/4 inch elastic.

The cape was an immediate hit. He wore it into town, under his coat, the day I made it. The mask is less successful. He has super long eyelashes (like, ridiculously long), and I think they kind of get in the way of having things close to his eyes.

Cape in action

We *may* have also dressed Baby Boy in the cape to make Superbaby, and made him fly round the livingroom, but there is no photographic proof of that.

I liked the idea of making the cape double sided, so he could choose which side to wear. I also, somewhat naively thought that the blue side would double as an Elsa cloak (no gender stereotyping around here!), but I was told in no uncertain terms that it was too short for an Elsa cape. Luckily there was a plan in place for that.

He has had this length of blue and white striped linen in his room for ages. It's leftover from a top I made for MMM13, and have since binned. He wanted it to use as the sea when playing one day and it's just stayed in his room ever since. Recently it has been resurrected as an Elsa cloak: he drapes it round his shoulders and holds it in place with one hand while the other hand builds imaginary ice palaces. At the moment he likes to watch Frozen with it wrapped around him and when it gets to the Let It Go bit, he jumps off the couch, stands in front of the TV and basically copies Elsa move for move - including throwing off the cloak, when she throws off her purple one, and putting it back on when she changes her outfit, just in time to complete the dramatic, final "cold never bothered me anyway" flounce.*

He's really happy with the fabric, so I offered to just neaten it up a bit. I overlocked the raw edges, and cut a circular shape out of one short end (kind of similar to the cape) to allow for his neck. I added a small square of velcro and we were done!

Small Boy is delighted with both "costumes" and is a very happy boy!

"Cold never bothered me, anyway!"

*If you are lucky enough to have never watched Frozen, then apologies - absolutely none of that will have made sense to you!