Sunday, April 07, 2013

Super Stuff - a how to of sorts


A few weeks ago we had an invite to a 5th birthday party. We spend a bit of time with this 5 year old. Her brief was "something in pink or purple and not something for boys". I can do that, I thought. As time drew closer, I felt little inspiration in the way of something to purchase.

Whenever Miss L visits our house, all the dress ups are pulled out and everyone strips down and dresses up. So I hit my pinterest boards looking for some homemade dress up inspiration.


And so, Super L was created. A personalised cape, super powered cuffs, mask for identity protection, shoe wings for flying (inspired by this pin). All reversible.

I do have some issues with Super Heroes; we spend a lot of time talking about how Emergency Services people are the real super heroes. However, we couldn't hold the flood gates closed on the superhero barrage, so The Smurf has lots of generic, homemade dress ups as well as the trademarked super people. And he loves them. So, I was hopeful Super L would feel the same.



I started out writing instructions for each piece, but really it is as simple as drawing the shapes and going from there. It's pretty simple to work things out from the pictures.

A How To of sorts... 

  • The wrist cuffs are rectangles of felt and joined on the short ends with two pieces of elastic attached at each end of the cuff. The cuff becomes a tube that is easily slipped on and off. I based the size on a toilet paper roll - The Smurf has quite a collection of super hero cuffs made from toilet paper rolls.


  • The mask is two pieces of felt sewn together with elastic sandwiched at the outer edges. No fussy turning out and clipping seams, just draw a template, place it on top of two pieces of felt, trace (with a seam allowance), sew and cut out - be careful not to cut the elastic while you're at it.


  • The shoe wings are again two layers of felt. Draw the shape on paper first so you can tweak it until you're happy. Trace, sew, cut. Then punch some shoelace holes for threading onto shoes. 


  • There are endless free cape tutorials on the web. My favourite is this one by Suzy at Floating World. However, the last few times I've made capes, I've used just one piece of fabric, rather than having a separate piece for the neckline. 
  • To make a reversible one-piece cape, I fold a piece of fabric in half length ways and use a kids singlet to get a rough guide on the depth of the neckline and tweak a bit deeper from that. Then simply draw the rest of the shape as you choose. Place the cut out piece face down on your second piece of fabric. Pin and sew around your shape, leaving a gap for turning in the right way. Clip your curves, turn in the right way and top stitch. Sew small pieces of velcro at the neck joins (remember Edna in The Incredibles says "No Capes!" so it needs to easily rip apart if it gets caught). 

How do you feel about Super Heroes? Have you kept them at bay at your place or is it all Pow! Bang! Biff! Boom!

6 comments:

Suzy said...

This is so very cool!
I am not anti superhero per se, but I am anti plastic-and-nylon-crap-in-my-house, and for this reason have held the superhero tide at bay until now. Although I may have just given in and bought a pair of batman pyjamas.
I need to make Miss M a cape of her own, because she keeps comandeering the one I made A way back when.

Cass said...

These are super awesome. We've had handmade capes here but my girls have never really been into the whole super hero thing

Rose Red said...

That is a very cool superhero set!

We have avoided superheroes so far, but Connor is only (almost) 3, so I imagine he'll be interested at some point. I will definitely try the homemade options first!

Anna said...

Very cool super hero present!

At this point I think I'd welcome some super hero action in this house.. we're all princess, mermaid and fairy around here.

Canberra Creatives said...

Unique, funky and very cool. What little girl wouldn't want to wear that. Awesome!

Anonymous said...

Eep! I've just seen this! Yes, Super L does love this costume, she has dragged it through the dirt, flown off the slide at the park and jumped out of her window, it is well and truly used for its purposes! Thank you SO much for such a generous and thoughtful gift. xx