The Cape: McCalls 5913. Stash Bustin' Success?

Just a small distraction on the way to achieving my uni holiday sewing goal. What do you think of my new cape?? I quite like it. I think I may even wear it. Better yet, it was made entirely from items in my stash excluding the pattern,  but including buttons and thread. I love stash management projects!

I've spent far too much time this past week, thinking about my plans to make a cape. While I like the modern styling of the Tessuti cape, I'm not a big enough fan to part with the $$ to buy the pattern. I had a range of styles in my Etsy faves from 1960's to 1980's, but in the end I settled on McCalls 5913.

Now, while this pattern clearly has a more modern style, I was quite concerned about the volume built into it. I don't think I would wear a cape if it felt too costumey. I also like the styling in the Tessuti cape, that has shorter 3/4 length arms with a button to control the volume. So I set about changing this myself and it was really quite easy.

You can see my modifications below. I reduced the volume on each side seam by chopping off about 4 inches from the notch near the shoulder down to the bottom. I then redrew the shape of the cape to allow 3/4 length arms, maintaining the original curve of the cape by using the bit that I chopped off  at the bottom as a guide. These modifications were then transferred to the back piece. I checked my sizing throughout to make sure there was enough ease for movement around the body and arms, while also ensuring it still look cape-like.

Despite the reduced volume and other changes, I'm pretty sure it still looks like a cape.

Following Tasia's guide to matching plaids and I pinned and pinned and pinned my fabric before cutting. I'm quite pleased with the matching.

As this cape was made with wool or a wool blend (I can't remember what it was), I chose to line the cape with some Anna Maria Horner voile from my stash. It is quite lovely and silky and mostly goes with the wool outer. Well at least it's obscure enough that it's not too dominating.

I kinda followed the instructions from Meg Made for lining the cape, but left the bottom edge of the cape till last, turning it up, right sides together to stitch the hem, leaving a gap to pull the cape back through.

Exciting lining

The last change made to the cape was to the collar. On the pattern it shows it worn up, but I chose not to interface the collar and it sits down just as nicely as up.

 

See?

So that's that for now. I do quite like it and will hopefully test it in public soon, maybe even to pick up the kids today. Well two kids anyway. Adele is horribly sick at the moment with both tonsillitis and bronchialitis - blah!

The only thing I need to figure out is how I hold my bag while wearing this cape...