DIY | Super Cape

The boy one isn't really old enough to watch many "Super Hero" shows but he has picked up on the notion of a "super cape" from a few features in programs like Backyardigans and Max and Ruby. I love how his imagination is blossoming and to facilitate a bit more pretend play I figured I'd make him a super cape.

Doesn't he look super?

 

Materials:

- Old T-shirt

- felt

- scissors

 I started by grabbing an old t-shirt of mine. It's from a stash of shirts I plan to make a quilt out of. I wanted to save the front of this shirt for the quilt as it was one of my warm up shirts from when I played for the U of R Cougars. 

You need to essentially cut out the back of the shirt while keeping it attached to the entire collar.

Once you have that cut you can shape the cape. Here I only cut a slight angle at the top but I find it a bit flappy so I'm going to slope it even more to round his shoulders better.

I also rounded off the bottom corners. Fold the cape in half before you cut to make sure you have symmetrical corners.

Next you need some embellishment. To make the popular Super Man diamond, cut a square from another t-shirt scrap, fold it on the diagonal and then clip the top and side corners.

From an old baby onesie I cut out a "K" for Super Kai. His real name is Miciah but Super Miciah is a little syllable intensive :) Jersey stretches a lot so pin everything in place before you sew!

With the K sewed on I then sewed the patch to the cape. Also what I didn't grab pictures of is where I sewed a length of blue ribbon and a length of red ric rac to the bottom of the cape for a little more pizazz.

Every hero also needs a mask to hide his true identity so I sketched out a quick pattern on paper and then pinned it to felt folded in half. To guide the mask creation I measured my son's face, and the distance between his pupils (for the eye holes).  Pin on the fold and cut!

Once it's cut out sew on elastic to the back. I sewed one side on and then fit it on his head and sewed the next side on.

 

After I finished his ensemble, which took less than 30 minutes we went upstairs for a little "super shoot." This kid cracks me up.

**Photo Tip: It was a rainy day and so my room was actually quite poorly lit. What was important to me was getting great action shots and so I jacked my iso up where it needed to be regardless of a bit of grain. To freeze action you need to set your shutter speed to at least 1/500. That's a fast shutter speed so you'll need to compensate with your aperture and iso. If you use your Tv setting your camera will do it for you or you can set it all in M.**

 

Yeah, he's totally crunching his head in the bottom right corner. Flips make me crazy nervous - for good reason!

"Look Mommy - I'm Super Cape!" Not Super Kai, he's Super Cape. Adorable.

 

I love how it fully looks like he's floating here!

 Ninja.

 Every super hero needs a side-kick and so we have a Super Hanny cape as well. Complete with pom pom trim of course (and sponsored by Adidas.)

 These were crazy easy to whip up. After my first run with Kai's cape it only took me 15 minutes to make Hanny's. This is a perfect gift for all the littles in your life. Customize a cape, sew a mask and even a couple of felt cuffs (with laser buttons of course) and pack them all together as a "Super Kit".

Here I just covered an old coffee tin in scrapbook paper to house all the items. It's a cute presentation and can be kept as a practical space to store their super clothes :)

Have a Super day!

P.S. He's acquired another fellow Super. I was promptly informed that Naters needs a cape too :)