A Little Black Cape

This is from the pattern in my To-Do pile from an earlier blog.

Dowanne (middle daughter's nickname) fell in love with this.

The fabric is a 2Ply Supplex Polyester from Seattle Fabrics. The outer shell is rain proof, the inner shell is a micro polar fleece. I bought some seam sealer to make it waterproof, but it really didn't need it.

This fabric gave me fits with my own coat. It is not forgiving, and when I ripped out my first seam, I had to recut the pieces because the stitching laid open the waterproof membrane inside and also the top.

Dowanne's cape had one incident, but it really isn't in a critical spot.

This was an adult size cape, so I resized it using tracing pellon and taking careful measurements against her shoulders to get it right. She had me lengthen the cape to her fingertips, which I thought was a pretty good idea, and also had me enlarge the arm openings so her arms didn't hang up when she tried to put them in the front pockets- also an important consideration.

I'm now waiting on the waterproof fabric to make #1 a raincoat. I'll be using PLU. This is traditionally a diaper cover fabric, but when I bought PLU to make diaper covers for my sister-in-law, it was so nice, I looked for a color that would make a nice rain cape.

The girls really enjoy being able to tweak the patterns they find to get exactly what they want. My oldest has always been really good about telling me before I cut out the pattern. This cape makes them both think of Sherlock Holmes, and yet it is in style enough that they don't look like they are going around in costume.

The only problem I had in the pattern was my own- when doing the pockets, I wasn't sure which way to sew (wide at the top or narrow) because I don't really mark my fabric with all the dots *gasp*, so if you look at her pockets, they are wider than the cute little flap. But lucky for me, her hands are always in the pockets.