Polka Dot Cape - Vogue 8959

Several weeks ago the weather in Chicago went from 70 degrees to 35 in the space of several days and has stayed there! Brrrrrrrrrr!! With jackets, coats and capes on my mind...

Back view on my balcony

I saw this great fabric 'Mystery Spot Coating' on Marcy Tilton website and I just had to have it! It made smile and I kept going back to look at it. The first time I saw it, I immediately thought that would be a super FUN cape or cloak. That thought never left my mind :) So. I had to buy some of it!
I don't usually like to acquire fabrics that are Poly based. Partly because they tend to be hot and sticky and partly because they take an extremely long time to break down in landfills.

For a fun and quirky cape it fit the bill and I am keeping my fingers crossed that the fiber is high quality and that there is no pilling. Only time will tell!

Side view, I LOVE the silhouette of this cape!

Once I placed the order for the fabric I was thinking about drafting a cape from my master patterns. Lat minute I looked through my patterns and there was Vogue 8959 A very Easy Vogue pattern. Instead of drafting from scratch I just used this as a starting place. I made some changes in the fit and the length and in the interior design.

Front view

I dithered about whether or not to underline the cape with cotton flannel and decided that I wanted to keep this as a fall and spring garment. There is also plenty of room underneath to bundle up with a heavy sweater. I have worn this out several times and am quite comfortable until we hit down around the 30 degree mark with wind.

For the lining I used a cotton shirting that I had in my fabric closet and used this. It is a perfect complement to the cape and because it is not slippery it doesn't slide around on my shoulders and more importantly doesn't slide back and choke me! That really isn't a good feature of any type of clothing!

Clockwise from top left- Lining, action twirling shot :),
 Inside patch pocket and close up of the arm slits and trim.

Changes in fit:
1. I changed the shape of the shoulder at the side seams. Flattened them out a bit.
2. I moved the arm slits up about 2 inches to be more comfortable and put them in a more natural place for my body.
3. I changed the length to halfway-ish between the short and medium length. They must have made this very a very tall model!

Top are the zippered grosgrain welt pocket.
Bottom- patch pocket and arm slits

Design changes:
1. I added 2 interior pockets. 1 is a very simple patch pocket big enough to hold my small wallet or iPhone or tissues, etc... (BTW... I can easily wear a small cross body purse underneath with no problem and you dont even see it!)
2. An inside grosgrain welt zipper pocket for my transit card or cash or whatever needs to be held super safe and secure!
3. The lining. The pattern had the lining hanging loose. Which is quite ridiculous, In my opinion, for a cape such as this. So I lined it to the edge and am very happy with this decision.
4. I added trim. I used the very cool selvedge of the fabric for trim around the outer edge of the cape, the front opening and the collar.
5. I used 5 extra large covered snaps for a closure.the pattern calls for a single button for the longer versions. Maybe because they were trying to keep this as a Very Easy rating or maybe because they designer was not envisioning this being used to walk around a city in. Who knows! and frankly... who cares! I make it the way I want it.

Close up of trim, under collar and snaps.

This was a fairly easy project. Everything went together easily, I did not use the pattern instructions.
The longest part of this project was sewing on the darn trim! I purposely only sewed on half of the snaps so that I would not be tempted to just say to heck with the trim. The things we do to keep ourselves on track. I brought the project with me to the Sarah Veblen choose your own focus workshop last weekend and a couple of the evenings Sarah and I both sat and worked on hand sewing the trim together while we caught up with each other. It was such a pleasant time to sit and sew with such a great friend :)

One more shot... Just for fun!

I have enough fabric left over to make a coat for the Princess! She will look adorable in those giant hairy polka dots!

This weekends escapades took us to the Shedd Aquarium! Self groupie shot out front!