A couple of days ago, I had a mild brain fart on how to do the sleeves. I know what I want, but laying it out and designing them is proving a bit tougher than I anticipated. I do believe I mentioned that everything I do is custom done, which means drawing out the pattern on my own, not using some boughten one. So while I was getting worked up over these sleeves (I mean, do I really want sleeves? Would a decent noble woman been seen without them??? I don't really CARE at this point!) I moved on to something that I knew I was going to need in our Wisconsin weather. Since the faire here runs from mid May to mid June, and May is notorious for being unpredictable with the weather (last year it was WINTER coats at baseball) I needed a new cape/cloak. I have one, but it's not exactly what I would call warm, just more for show.
I scoured the internet for a simple pattern that wouldn't take 8+ yards of fabric. I have a pattern that is real nice and full, but didn't want to use that much fabric. I know you can make them with as little as 3-3 1/2 yds and know I've seen it on line before, so I did some digging. Sure enough, I found a pattern for a semi-circle cloak and it fit the need.
I have a nice heavy weight cotton (think denim/twill) that is black that I wanted to use. Used alone, it wouldn't provide what I needed for the elements and I didn't have enough wool to line it with. So I opted for comfort vs. historically correct. I pulled out the polar fleece. Yup, polar fleece. I had 5 yds of blue that would fit the bill. And frankly, looking at it now, it could plausibly pass for wool. (yeah right, who am I kidding??) Here's a link to the site I found.
http://www.copdandsomuchmore.com/homesewingcape.html
Step one: Wash and dry your fabric. With this being a cotton blend and being black I wanted to make sure that if it was going to shrink it did and if the color was going to bleed it would BEFORE I found out in the rain.
Step two: Vaccum the floor. In case I never mentioned it, I have dogs and two of my dogs shed horribly. It never fails. I get ready to move onto another project, fabric hits the floor and it's covered in dog hair. Yuk!
Step three: Measure how long I want the cloak to be. I want a true measurement from the shoulder area to the floor OVER the hoop.
Step four: Follow the directions given on the site and measure out the first layer. This requires getting out my cutting board and hefting the fabric up and over it. Did I mention that it's a heavy cotton/twill fabric? Did I mention it's over 8 yards of it?
Step five: Cut fabric as directed on the site. Now I should mention that you should NEVER follow what a website tells you to the tee. Always double check what you're doing before hand. I, on the other hand, forgot this...DUH! It worked anyway.
Step six. Unfold the length of fabric and fold it the opposite direction, giving one HUGE square. Bigger than my cutting table. On to the floor I go!
Step seven: Cuss out the dogs and self for not vacuuming good enough
Step eight: Find yarn and chalk for drawing on this fabric.
Now would be a good time to let you all know a little tip: Always gather your gear before you start a project. Read and re-read what your going to need. It saves time.
Step nine: Draw out the circles for the cape and the neck area.
Step ten: Cut said fabric on the drawn lines.
This completes the cape. Well, almost. As I said, never follow what they tell you to do. I then took the fleece and cut it to size and re-folded it over. Using the cut piece of black, I cut out the lining. On to the hood.
I couldn't quite understand what she was saying on the site, so I went to another and found a great hood pattern that made sense. http://home.clara.net/arianrhod/Aldebaran/DoItYourself/Cloak03.html about half way down is the hood pattern. I made my hood deeper and taller as I wanted the BIG effect. BTW, we who are short always want the BIG effect!
Here's a pic of the hood being cut out.
When both hoods were cut out, I stitched them up and attached them to the body of the cape, matching the back seam with the center back.
I wanted to make this cape have class and be fitting for a noble woman, so I trimmed it in off white fur. I then dug into my 'tail' collection (yes, real tails that have been tanned, a gift from a dear friend) and found two white tails and put them on near the neckline. I then matched up both and sewed it together. Now I had to think about how I wanted to close this.
I know most close with some form of a clasp, and that's great, however, with the sleeves that I'm designing, I needed a bit more space. So I made a chained clasp and used two buttons to sew it on. One side is stationary and the other has a hook to go around the button. The only thing left is to hem up the bottom, but with circle anythings it's best to let them hang for a few days before you hem to make sure that the weight is evenly distributed on the bottom. This way, it saves from a wonky hem. Is that even a word? Anyway, here's the finished (almost) cloak.
What do you think?
Holy crap, that's amazing!
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