In light of beginning "The 'Green Clothing' Challenge," I thought it would be fun to share a tutorial on the Princess Cape I made for my niece from recycled fabrics. My husband and I both love to make homemade gifts (for example, our Christmas gifts found here and here). Hubby creates things out of leftover wood from other home projects, while I prefer to sew!
Our niece is a little princess. She loves everything pink and sparkly. So when my friend (who is doing the challenge with me) came home with 3 boxes of vintage fabric for $30, I was ecstatic to be able to pick through with her!
I left with a score of shiny pink satin fabric. Perfect for a princess. Match that with some scraps of white, sparkly gold cotton that came from who-knows-where, I had a great combination to create a cape fit for a princess.
For this project I used the following materials:
- Computer & Printer
- Sewing machine
- Scissors
- Pins
- Coordinating thread
- Fusible webbing (e.g. "Wonder Under" or "Heat N Bond")
- Fabric for cape: 31 in. x 31.5 in. (based on height of the child) - 31 inches is my WIDTH
- Two strips of fabric for trim: 20 in. x 3.5 in., 31.5 in. x 3.5 in.
- Scrap fabric for the letter applique
- Small square of Velcro
Part A:
- Print your desired letter applique as a mirror image. Cut around the letter and glue it to the paper side of your double-sided fabric adhesive (e.g. Wonder Under).
- Iron your letter onto the wrong side of your fabric. I used glittery white fabric (the stripes underneath are from my ironing board).
- Cut out your letter along the outline. Leave the paper backing on for now.
- Cut a piece of fabric for your cape. Mine measures 31 in x 31.5 in.
- Gather the top of your fabric using a basting stitch (i.e. the longest stitch on your machine), sewing approximately 1/4 inch from the edge. Now, holding the bottom thread, pull the top thread to gather the fabric so that it measures 12 inches in length.
- Next, cut a strip of fabric for the collar. Here mine measures 20 in x 3.5 in.
- Lining up the centre of the collar fabric strip to the centre of the gathered edge of your fabric, pin your strip to the cape, right sides together.
- Since my fabric was very slippery to work with, I used a LOT of pins. This is not necessary. :)
- (Showing the other side of the gather).
- Sew the two pieces of fabric together; try to avoid sewing over your gathering stitches. Carefully pull out your gathering threads.
- Iron the collar upward, away from the cape. Also iron all of the edges 1/4 inch inward.
- Fold the collar over in half and iron. Pin in place if desired.
- Topstitch (1/8 inch) around the three open sides.
Part D:
- This part is very similar to the collar. Centre the strip of fabric trim on the bottom of the cape, and pin in place with right sides together. Sew the two pieces together.
- Follow steps 1-3 from Part C, ironing the edges, folding in half, and topstitching along the open edges.
Part E:
I apologize, I did not take pictures of these last few steps. I will try to be as descriptive as I can.
- You now want to sew two squares of Velcro to the collar (one square of 'hoops' and the other of 'loops'). I simply straight stitched around each square. When you are doing this, make sure that the Velcro pieces are placed in such a way that they connect when you 'close' the collar!
- And now for the last finishing touch....ironing on your letter applique! Iron your letter near the centre of the cape (you can see in the photo on the right below that I could have placed it higher). Follow the instructions on your fusible webbing when doing this. If you have the type that does not need to be sewn, than you are finished! If you have 'sewable' webbing, you will want to do a zigzag stitch around the edge of your letter to secure it in place.
Finally, admire your beautiful Princess Cape!
Happy Sewing!
I plan to link up here:
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