Sew & Tell: Go to Cape for Girls

I used wool flannel for the exterior of the cape purchased from Nature’s Fabrics (https://www.naturesfabrics.com). She’s pretty much my go to retailer when I need to buy anything wool. We live on the northern California coast where it can be quite chilly a lot of the year, I thought a light wool exterior would be great for year round use here. The interior is Tula Pink Salt Water Octo Garden in aqua, and while this print is directional (something not recommended for this project because of needing to cut the panels with the grain, which can cause the pattern not to match up) I knew that this little girl getting the cape as a gift was definitely a Tula girl. Her mother picked out the interior fabric, and while there is some change in the pattern it still turned out fabulous! The octopi are still right side up in the hood and in the front 2 panels, making those the ones you see the most. Interior fabric was purchased from Hawthorne Threads, when my local quilt shop doesn’t carry what I need I turn to them. The buttons were covered with the Octo Garden fabric.

My pattern collection is made up of a lot of Go To Patterns, but I hadn’t tried the Go To Cape for girls yet. The pattern was easy to follow, and I ended up making no changes to the design since this was my first time sewing it. Sewing the cape from cut out to finish only took me a few hours, and I think the rating of adventurous beginner is spot on. I am always impressed when a pattern designer can hit the mark with fabric requirements, leaving just a bit left over for error and this is exactly what Andrea did. I ended up needing to recut a couple of the outer panels, and I had just enough fabric to do so. Overall I found this a quick sew, detailed photos to go along with each step of the tutorial. I ended up not doing any of the optional embellishments (embroidery or bow detail), but I’m one that tends to stay with clean, simple design. The versatility of not only this pattern with optional embellishments, but all of the Go To Patterns is so many choices included.

I made this in a 12/14 size for a sweet girl on her birthday. I’m so glad she allowed me to be part of her special day. Happy Birthday Kai!