Super Hero Capes

Last year, I made two superhero masks for my kids for Christmas. Handmade Holidays Part III -Superhero Masks



A full year later, both of the masks I made were still around the house, and often near the top of the toy box (meaning they are used frequently) so I decided to make the kids capes to go along with their masks.





I used the same felt material (60 inch wide EcoFelt from Joanne's, regularly it is $4.99 per yard, but goes on sale for 50% off all the time. Add in the coupon that Joann's puts in my mailbox nearly weekly and it was a very cheap project)



I used black felt and free-handed a cape shape. I cut out the cape and then hand sewed a contrasting felt letter onto the cape.



A tiny piece of self adhesive Velcro at the neckline and it was a wearable cape.

Honestly, I was a bit shocked at just how quickly and easily this project came together so I decided to make another... and another... and another, by December 19th I had made 12 cape - and - mask combos for all of the kids in our lives.



I never got a photo of all of the capes together since they were gifted as quickly as I could finish them.




Here is what the gift looked like, one simple mask and a monogrammed cape--pink for the girls, black for the boys and everyone got a black mask.



This project was a lot of fun, and very easy to churn these puppies out assembly line style. From start to finish a cape took less than 1 hour each to complete. By far, the hand stitching was the slowest part (the letter M was a particular pain), but it was also very easy to do while watching TV.

Most of the capes were for local friends from our church, but one cape was hand carried all the way up to Connecticut for my second cousin (is that what you call the child of a cousin? oh well)

Notes:
1) I free handed the first few letters then decided to just print out a set of 6 inch high letters from the computer-- much easier to use a template to get the letter just right.
2) I used embroidery floss in a contrasting color to applique each of the letters to the capes. At first I was kind of disappointed with my uneven stitching, but then decided it looked folksy (sure, why not)
3) The rough outline for the cape came from here: http://pukingpastilles.com/?p=57 but I did not go through all of the effort of lining the cape, mine were super easy, no sewing machine needed.
4) With careful placement, I could get three toddler-sized capes from one 20 inch cut of the fabric. Fabric is 60" wide and the capes are each ~20 inches wide and 20 inches tall.