Belated Cape-Along

It's been a few weeks, and not for lack of anything to write about. I spent the first four weeks after my last post making things and preparing for an overseas trip. The past three weeks have been spent overseas with my little family. The past three days have been spent home sick. Not nearly as much fun, but glad it happened as I was heading home from holiday rather than heading on holiday.

One of the things I made before I went away was a cloak for my little one. Actually, I made two cloaks, as I made one for myself, but I'm going to ramble about the little one's one first.

Over at The Monthly Stitch the August challenge was making a cape. Now, I know I made a cloak, and it's not quite the same. But with all that I had to do before going away I wasn't going to have time to make myself a pretty little cape, so I'm totally counting what I did make.

We went to Burning Man. My husband has a large cloak he wears, that keeps him warm as he wanders the nighttime playa and doubles as a blanket. Plus when you wear it on the plane it counts as a jacket and doesn't take up luggage allowance. I decided I was going to make one for myself and for our daughter.

For Guinevere, I found a neon yellow fun fur on clearance. I had some polarfleece I'd gotten in a 40% off sale, enough for the middle layer of both our cloaks, plus some rainbow swirly satin for her, just like her Daddy's cloak. I also had some calico for an additional, velcro out layer, that would have EL wire sewn to it, to provide light when wandering around at night.

Guinevere telling me how she thinks I should lay out the pattern pieces

Guinevere attempting to cut out the fabric using her little scissors

Guinevere happily snuggled up on the couch wrapped in her cloak and grinning at Daddy (who you can't see, but is wearing his cloak)

I don't actually have any photos of her wearing it at Burning Man. Two reasons, one, I didn't take very many photos. Two, the cloak turned out to be impractical for wearing, she kept taking it off, which is no good when I was using it to light her up. So I sewed EL wire onto her little jacket, and used the cloak as a blanket in the wagon we were pulling her around in. She did spend about 30 minutes one evening running around the camp in it, but as soon as we went to head out, off it came. It wasn't helped by it being quite a warm burn, usually in the evenings she was topless under her jacket. Previous years she would have needed a layer or two of merino under it. 

My cloak, which I'll share photos off when I've taken some, didn't get worn at all, it was just too warm at night. Most nights I was still in just a t-shirt by the time we made it back to our RV for the night. 

So, blogged about a bit later than August, but still made in August, so I'm totally counting it.