On a Practice Capelet (with Penguins!)

Prepare yourself for a lengthy story of sewing procrastination and pattern drafting! I had been given about a yard and a half of vintage red wool about three years ago that I knew I wanted to be a capelet (a Red Riding Hood capelet to be specific as I have a fairy tale saturated brain), but never having worked with wool and not having a pattern for a capelet, I wasn't all that enthusiastic about starting in on making one. 

While I made a few attempts over the past few years at finding a pattern that didn't involve panels, I didn't really come up with anything I liked or that had a hood, so I continued to put it off. Finally this past summer it occurred to me that I really just wanted to start with my circle skirt pattern and draft my own capelet pattern. I ended up waiting until the end of November to try this idea because I never seem to get in the groove of sewing clothes in the season they aren't needed rather than the season you'd typically wear them. 

I knew with the small amount of fabric I had I definitely needed to make a practice before going onto the red wool. This involved pulling out all my fabric stash and trying to determine what I had that I wouldn't mind ruining if I totally messed up, which is where the penguin fabric entered the picture (see the last picture for closeup of penguins) because it too was given to me, it was a slightly smaller piece than the wool, and it was something that I periodically stared at and wondered what in the world I was going to do with it other than use it for a muslin. Having picked the fabric, I then proceeded to look absolutely ridiculous by taking one of my circle skirts and trying it on at my shoulders to see if I could just use that pattern as a basis, which was then followed by the trying on of  a cheap Christmas tree skirt (yes, you read that right!) to get an idea of length and how big the gap in the front would be. This ridiculousness lasted about three hours, ended with a basic pattern drafted onto tissue paper, and the cutting out of both the outer layer and lining.

Having settled that I moved onto the hood. I was set on having a drapey hood, none of my patterns have drapey hoods (or so I thought until I pulled out a 40's coat pattern this morning that I had forgot had a hooded version). I had found a free pattern online that had a hood that I was initially intending on using, it however came with the problem that it needed about as much fabric as the cape, so it was a no go and ultimately I ended up tracing the hood from one of my sweatshirts onto the printed pattern piece that didn't work and cutting it down slightly in relation to the traced hood, which then I cut down more on the fabric (forgetting to copy the finished size on to tissue paper, something I accidentally fixed later). Then there was a struggle to get the curve to match up on the hood with the curve of the neckline, which magically worked itself out (still amazed that it fit right).   

Because, once again, the penguin fabric was smaller than my wool piece, I ended up using the same burgundy broadcloth I was using for the lining for the hood. 

I decided to try the method where you bag out the whole thing to avoid dealing with any seam lines and therefore making it reversible in case I didn't want to wear penguins. So I merrily sewed by hood pieces together and then on to their respective side of the cape in order to get the whole thing together. I was very happy about how things were going until one of the hood pieces got folded over when I was trying to pink the seam between it and the cape and I cut a hole in it. This involved having to rip out the center seam of the hood and the part connecting the cut piece to the cape. While I was upset about having to cut out the new piece and trying to fit it to the pieces that I already cut my seams off, this provided me with a "pattern" for the hood piece that I forgot to trace. 

Everything went smoothly following that mishap. The inner and outer layer bagged out beautifully with only minor problems getting the corners to poke out nicely, more so on the part with the fastening. I ended up choosing to do a snap for the fastening with a button sewn on as decoration rather than trying to deal with finding a button for each side that was the same side and to avoid button hole problems.

You can just see the snap.

And that sums up the lengthy post on my practice capelet! Given the rate I got work on this capelet, perhaps by next year I'll get my wool one done!

♥ ♥ ♥