Tutorial: T-Shirt Super Hero/Heroine Cape Part 1

Like I promised you last week, here is the simplest way I have ever seen to make a cape. In its’ simplest form it requires absolutely NO SEWING! Yea for that! I had seen the idea at the beginning of this year but couldn’t remember where. I thought it was the most brilliant idea and couldn’t wait to make one for my son. I took the idea and changed it up a bit to fit my needs and what I had on hand. Luckily, I found the source. I saw it originally on MADE for Dana’s Celebrate the Boy Month and then clicked through to see the tutorial at The Southern Institute. I just took her version and cut out a couple of steps.

All you need to start is: a t-shirt and scissors and/or a rotary knife with self healing mat.

To make it a little fancier we’ll need some more materials but I’ll get to that in a bit.

First, pick out the shirt you’re going to use. Using a shirt for this project is brilliant because t-shirt material doesn’t unravel so you don’t have to hem it and it already had all the parts you need to make a cape. If you want the cape blank, find a shirt that has at least the back blank. If you have an old shirt that has a picture on it that you like you could use that as well. The first cape I made for Josiah, I used one of Ken’s old shirts and had to cut and adjust the collar. This time I used a youth sized shirt (size 14/16) which worked just perfectly. Whatever you have on hand though should do just fine.

Since my shirt had a funny picture on it that made no sense to me, I planned on using the back. (But thanks to facebook and some very cool and in-the-know friends, I now know that the shirts are for a band from San Marcos that is no longer around. Thanks Valerie and Sharon!)

Lay your shirt out flat.

Cut up the sides with scissors and then pull the two sides apart.

Cut around the neck. At this point I cleaned up my cutting a bit with my rotary knife but you don’t have to do that. I also ended up cutting 3 inches off the bottom of Audrey’s so she wouldn’t trip on it.

If you are using a smaller shirt like me that has a smaller neck hole, you are finished! Just slip it over your kid’s head and you are good to go!

I brought along two of these shirts with us to the beach and made the capes there in under a minute. Both kids loved running around in them and didn’t care that there was nothing on the cape. They didn’t know there could be anything added to it.