And I said: ok! mummy will make you a cape. I started to dream about what fabrics, pattern, etc to use. But due to work & the sewing area still snowed under by fabrics/mess/projects, I did not manage to get that cape made for many weeks.

Last week, my son came home from my mom’s place with a vinyl mat taken from a toy set and asked me to clip it around him, so that it could be his ‘cape’. That kind of broke my heart to see him dragging that piece of material all over the room.

Cue 10-min shopping at Spotlight for satin fabrics and I got down to sewing it today. Drafted a quick pattern and involved Benji quite a bit (for measurements, customisation of insignia, etc). After a couple of hours, we got CAPE!

He grabbed his Lego Castle helmet and Star Wars light saber (aka Lance or Sword) and stood in front of my full length mirror for some practice moves. I had to sneak a couple of photos while he was in action

And once again, I’m really glad for my sewing stash - interfacing and BLACK velcro that I bought long ago without a project in mind (perfect for these ‘just in case’ situations).

Here we are: on the way for dinner and he made a beeline for the garden so that he could admire his reflections in the glass doors and running in the open to get wind under his cape.

At bedtime, he asked me for a super-hero cape, with a lightning bolt on it, please.

SURE!

Tags: cape, knight
Posted in Clothings, Kids, Sewing | No Comments »

Halloween is becoming a fun excuse for me to dress up Benji for our get-togethers with friends. And who says you can only have fun dressing up little girls?

Last year, we had a fuss-free outfit and Benji was not totally clued in on what was going on!

This year, it was as clear as daylight what he would enjoy being costumed as… I present: Young Ben Kenobi!

I have the Taftc apparel pattern and sewing course to thank for the confidence to work on this project with the Simplicity 3575 pattern. The Dad said that the costume should not have a sash but I included it anyway to keep the layers from getting into the boy’s way.

For fabric, I used this lovely brown Essex Linen that I bought a long long time ago. There are a few learnings from this project:

1) Buy the pattern from the store, instead of purchasing the softcopy. I had to print 41 pages on my printer and used about 2 rolls of tapes taping the pages together. Even then, some lines were wonky. TEDIOUS!

2) The sleeves and robe length were way too long even when I used a XS child size which listed the same measurements as Benji’s.

3) The pattern doesn’t provide overlocking instructions or seam finishing recommendations. I will simply overlock every piece of fabric cut-outs in the future.

4) The sleeves were too long for my Son, and I decided to ‘hem’ the sleeves with the Blind Hem Stitch. I found it much easier to hem the narrower ‘tube’ by hand.

5) For the robe hem, I finally got to use my blind hem footer on the Bernina as it is meant to be used! It was so easy and it really works great on the garment.

Looking forward to next year’s dress-up already!

Tags: Fabrics, family, halloween, t-shirt
Posted in Clothings, Gifting, Kids, Sewing, Stash Report | 1 Comment »