Super Hero Capes Tutorial

This last week, I had the privilege of helping my sister-in-law, Jenny, sew together 26 capes for her son's 4th birthday party!  26 capes is A LOT!  Whether you want to do 1 or 30, these capes are super easy to create and cost very little!  

Jenny found a whole bunch of shirts from the local Goodwill in a variety of colors.  It doesn't matter if there is something on one side of the shirt.  As long as one side of the shirt is plain, you will be able to use it no problem.  If you have old shirts in your closet that you are no longer wearing, you can use them for this project for an even lower cost cape.  I believe most of these shirts were size Large or Extra Large, but honestly, you could use a Medium, too, especially with smaller/younger kiddos.  

Lay the shirt flat, and cut off the sleeves.

Now that the sleeves are off, cut up both sides of the shirt.  It will now look like the above picture ^^

Now, you'll be cutting out the "cape" shape.  You will be cutting in a curved motion up and AROUND the neck hole.  

These ^^ are our 26 cut-out capes!  Because the cotton shirts naturally "roll" under on the edges, we did NOT hem the edges at all.  If yours is too long for your kiddo, now is a good time to also cut the bottom a bit, too.

Now, you will need the shapes for the cape. Martha Stewart has printable patterns for these HERE.  Follow the instructions on the site to assemble the patterns.  We used fleece for the shapes, as we wouldn't have to do any finish work on the ends.  Jenny found fleece on sale at the local Jo-Ann's for just $4 per yard.  Cut out as many shapes as you are doing capes.  You will need 1 background piece and 1 top piece (star, lightning bolt) per cape.  

Sew one of each piece onto the capes.  We layered the two pieces and sewed them together all around the outside.  Then, we went back and sewed through the edges of the stars & lightning bolts.  We, of course, started with some technical difficulties with our sewing machines, but when I timed myself on the last one, it was only taking around 5 minutes to sew all the pieces together.

Next, to make them 1) safe for children, and 2) easy to get on/off, cut a slit in the neck hole.  

Lastly, sew velcro to the neck hole.  Make sure to sew one piece to the front and one piece to the back so that they close together perfectly.  Jenny was able to find 30 Velcro pairs for around $4.

Here are the finished capes ^^ (The necks had not been finished yet in this picture, though).

Here are all the capes hung up at the birthday party.  She used a string and hang the capes on for the kids.  Aren't they colorful?

I was honestly surprised at how much my girls loved these capes!

And, last, but not least, Jenny's mom and grandma and dad together made this amazing city-scape on a big blue sheet.  Jenny used a step stool to get up high and take pictures of all the kids "flying" over the city in their capes.  Isn't it amazingly cute???