Welcome to Super Hero Craft Week!
My son has recently become interested in super heroes, and I know with some of your boys, it is more of an obsession! I hope this week you will find some fun ideas and crafts to keep your super hero loving kids happy!
Today, I'm glad to have Ilene, from Come On, Ilene! here to show us a fun cape tutorial! She has a fun blog, where I found out she has great taste (our blog designs are a big similar :) ) I think she loves bicycles even more than I do, as you can see from her latest post! Enjoy!
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Hi! I'm Ilene and I blog over at Come On, Ilene! Thanks for having me here, Lindsay! I'm delighted to share my Reversible Superhero Cape Tutorial during Super Hero Week!
I made this reversible superhero cape for my little friend Mikey.
Mikey is one of my favorite little boys- so sweet, smiley, and easy
going. He laughs at everything and his girlish high-pitched squeals
and giggles capture my heart. If I have a little boy, I want my
child to be just like him, he's just adorable. He loves the Disney
movie Cars and when I babysit him, he often zooms all around the house
whispering "Focus. Speed. I. Am. Speed," running around with his
little clenched fists in front of him. He sits in his little carseat
behind me while I drive, keeping himself entertained by repeating "I
am lightning. Ka chow! Ready, set, go!" It's hilarious! He has an
extra special place in my heart because I babysat his older sisters
while his mom was at the hospital giving birth to him so I can't
believe that he just turned 3 years old! It was fitting that he had a
Cars-themed party. He was a superhero for Halloween last year, so I
thought I would make him a cape for his birthday that combined both of
his loves. What little toddler wouldn't love their very own superhero
cape?
I had a rough idea of how I was going to sew this cape in my head but
I mostly made it up as I went along. All I had to go off of was this
very precise pattern that I doodled:
I started with this nice blue velvet fabric, which I folded in half
and pinned in place. (If I had red fabric on hand, I would have done
the Lightning McQueen side using red fabric just to make it more
different) I was going to draw one half of the cape against the fold
and cut out so that when I unfold it, both sides would be even:
For the neck hole, I traced a 5.5" bowl, lining half of it against the fold:
Then I drew out the basic pattern for half of the cape:
Cut and unfold the cape so that it looks like this (I added the rough
dimensions for a cape sized for a 3 year old):
I used this piece as a pattern for the backside. I traced and cut out
an identical piece so that I had two matching pieces, one for superman
and other for lightning mcqueen.
I drew a superman logo with an "m" for Mikey using photoshop about 8"
wide and printed it out. It took a few tries to get the size of the
logo just right. I placed the logo on the cape to get a good idea of
what it would look like, made adjustments and reprinted:
For the Lightning McQueen logo, I found one by googling and printed it
out to the right size:
I then cut out the logos from the paper and used them as patterns to
trace on felt. I cut out the felt logos and placed on the cape (sorry
for the dark picture, by this time, it was getting late into the
evening):
Then machine stitched the logos in place on each side:
"95" for Lightning McQueen:
To put the whole cape together, pin the two pieces right sides
together and sew all around the edge, leaving a 5" opening to turn
inside out. Turn the cape right side out and then top stitch all
around the cape, sewing the 5" opening shut. (Sorry, no pictures of
this because it was approaching 1am in the morning when I finished) I
sewed velcro on both sides of the neck ties so that it would be easy
for a 3 year old to put on and take off:
I wish I got a picture of Mikey "vrooming" around the house with his
cape on!! He looked super cute! And now he has an outfit to wear when
his older sisters want to play dress up! He won't be stuck wearing one
of their many princess dresses and tutus!
After I made this reversible cape, I whipped up a couple
NON-reversible superman capes for my cousin's two sons, which was even
easier and faster! Check out the one-sided version by clicking on the
image below:
I also made a couple little capes for my college friend's two
daughters! We went to Duke University and the mascot is a Blue Devil
who wears a cape and horns, so I had to make a Duke version, too!!
The possibilities are endless with these superhero capes!! Hope you
try these out!! And please come visit me over at Come On, Ilene! for other fun
ideas!!
Thanks for having me! Enjoy superhero week!
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