Snow White Cape - Happily Ever After Girls Camp

I went to Walmart looking for cheap red fabric for some capes we want to make for Girls Camp this summer. I looked at everything they had and found some red fabric for $1 a yard but they had less that 2 yards. The other red fabric was over $2.50 a yard. 
 
Making 25 capes and needing at least 1/2 a yard for each cape, it could get expensive. I wanted to make them short as camp is in the summer and gets hot so if you want a longer cape, consider that when buying your fabric. 

Because the fabric was so expensive, I thought about looking at sheets to get the yardage I needed for a bit less per yard. 


I looked at Walmart and couldn't find any solid red sheets. I pondered and thought I may find some at a second hand store. I checked a few days in a row and of course my Heavenly Father is good to me and provided a sheet set for $3 for the top and $3 for the bottom. For $6, I got enough fabric to make 25 capes and some headbands to match. 


I folded the flat sheet evenly into rectangles for the size of cape I wanted. I used the hems and sides of the sheet so that I didn't have to hem the capes. I cut the elastic off the fitted sheet and saved the elastic for the headbands. 

I made more capes from the fitted sheet and then used the rest of the fabric for the headbands which I show in another post. 

I hemmed the edges of the cut capes that didn't already have a finished edge. 
 
I kept two sewing machines, one that had red thread and one that had white. 

After hemming the ribbon or binding edges for the tie of the cape, I put red thread in the bottom bobbin and kept the white thread in the top so that I could sew white on the lace over the seam to make the cape look finished and so that the seam wouldn't be rough on their necks. 

The string of ribbon you see above is to save thread, I just hemmed the ends of the binding I used for the ties so that it wouldn't fray during camp. I didn't want to have to cut off each one and start up again so I just sewed them one after another and then cut them apart after. 

I thought of several things to make the "collar" of the cape but Pellon would be stiff and possibly irritate and felt is a bit thick and warm so I ended up using a thin batting used for quilting that you can get on the bolt at walmart for $2.77 a yard. 


I made the collar larger at first and thought it looked silly and kept falling over so I cut it in half as you can see in the picture and I think the shorter collar looks better and the batting is soft and not irritating at all but still looks good.
 
I show one cape that I sewed with white thread so you can see how I sewed the binding on for the tie and how I used it to cover up the seam and also sewed the seam down in order to make the collar stand up better. After the one to show you, I used red thread in the bobbin and white on top so that the stitches didn't show on the cape.
 
Once you sew the collar on with right sides together, I then put the seam down towards the cape and pin the binding or ribbon over it and then sew the top of the binding or ribbon and then the bottom so that it covers the seam completely.

You can see that the seam doesn't show in either of the last few pictures. It makes a nice finished look and will keep the edges from fraying as well.

You can see in the picture below that I did a rolled hem on the edges that weren't already finished from the sheet edges.



The fitted sheet was a bit harder to fold to get flat for the cape pieces but I shared how I cut off the elastic. 

At first, I started seam ripping out the hem for the elastic and that was taking too long and the fabric was really wrinkled so I just cut off the elastic casing from the edges of the fitted sheet and pulled the elastic out to use for the headbands. 
 
After that, it was easy to lay the fabric flatter to get the rest of the capes I needed out of it. I kept the edges and a few larger pieces of the fabric for the matching headbands. In case you don't read that post, I used the water absorbing silica to make "Cooling" headbands for the hot summer days and hikes of camp.

I am also making Tunisian knit headbands for nights as it is cold where we will be camping at night. We are also using the "Ghetto" beanies that I made out of sweaters for the "dwarf" type hats that they can wear at night as well if they want. Here is a link to that post.

I took a video of how I made the capes but forgot that you can't hold the small camera sideways.... So, I am sorry that the video is sideways but it doesn't change the information on how to make it, it is still good. Here is a link to that video. 

This can be done for a Superman or a spirit cape or for a magician or sorcerers cape as well, just use a different color sheet or fabric. I think the girls will be "Superheros" at camp with their cute capes.