Re: Batman: My first costume build (WIP)
Another quick update, but first let me say that I've never sewn a thing in my life. A huge thanks to my mother-in-law for helping me.
I spent the day working on the cape. I bought some black satin fabric last week that I had been planning on using. The plan was to get the basic pattern sewn and then hit it with the latex. Yesterday I found some black satin stretch material that has a really nice look and feel. It's much heavier than the original stuff I bought. So I thought it would be better not to add any latex to it. I'm leaving it as is.
I am using the basic bat cape pattern floating around the various forums and run boards. You know he one, 11' diameter, divided into nine sections, with 5" scalloped ends. I started by building a pattern to use for cutting the fabric. Using tissue paper I created a pattern for a single panel in the cape. Using the panel I measured the position to ensure that I was leaving enough room for the second panel to be cut from the same square of material. So lesson one, standard fabric bolts are like 60" wide and in order to fit two 66" panels it must start at least 3-4 inches from the end of the fabric, which meant that the 66" pattern measured about 71" from the top. I pinned the pattern each time to ensure that cuts were as close as possible. I managed to get the 6 panels pinned and cut individually in 2 hours.
On to the sewing. Of course the panels were not perfectly uniform, but I found that the stretchy material managed to trick me on two of my panels that ended up being about 2 inches longer some how. I figured that since I would be trimming the neck area to get the right position and size that it made sense to sew from the bottom and line up all of the scalloped points.
WRONG!! When the six panels were sewn it had spiraled around the neck with each piece extending longer than the next. The result was that the cape when draped over my shoulders had the seams all crooked and twisted. It looked terrible. Scratching my head for a while, I couldn't figure it out. So I pulled all the stitching out and thought to give it another try. There are two edges in this pattern, the straight edge is the edge of the fabric that runs length wise. The bias edge runs right angle against both the lengthwise and crosswise grains, it's always more stretchy and has more give than the others. Lesson number 2, start from the top points first and sew with the straight edge on top as opposed to the bias edge.
It ended with the six panels actually lined up both on top and bottom, although I may need to do a little trimming at the ends. It drapes just perfectly over the shoulders and all the seams line up just right. I still have to finish the seams, probably a nice flat felled seam. Also this week I will work on cutting the neck line and figuring out how I'm going to attach this thing to myself.
The completed pattern:
View attachment 72123
The pinning:
View attachment 72124
The twisted cape:
View attachment 72125