Alexia Maccon Cosplay Part V: The cape

Alexia wears this very cute little shoulder cape with her floating dress.  Looking at the cover, it appears to have a fancy closure at the neck, either applique or embroidery down the front, some sort of fluffy trim around the bottom and a standing collar.  The cape is also a fairly dark shade of blue.  Searching many fabric stores I could not find any silk that matched this color, so I settled on a blue poly satin. 

The pattern for this is basically a full circle with a neck hole and a simple standing collar.  I cut a slit into the circle to form the opening and then rounded the bottom front edges the give a more gentle curve.  If you look at the image to the left you can see the gentle curve to the bottom front.  The trim is a gathered lace with pleated satin over it.  Thankfully this trim was bought this way and did not need to gather the lace or pleat the satin!

 The design on Alexia's cape looked almost like velvet to me, but I was dreading doing the velvet applique and running out of time!  So I used heat set flocking material.  The idea for this did not come from me, but rather from a blogger I love, Fresh Frippery and her Lady Tremaine dress. She used this same flocking to add the lovely accents to her Lady Temaine gown (seriously this gown is amazing)! She used a Silhouette machine to cut out her appliques, I don't own one of these but found this stuff just as easy to work with without the machine.  I designed the appliques then drew them onto the plastic backing of the flocking material.  The designs were then cut out and the backing material removed by hand.  The designs were then ironed on (using a cloth to cover the designs).  Once attached the front covering was removed and I was left velvet like appliques!  The only down side I have found is that the flocking picks up sooo much cat hair and fuzz!  I am forever cleaning them up!

The closure is a false closure made of a fancy button bought at the fabric store and stitched to a straight piece of the satin (lined and interlined for strength).  The cape actually closes with hidden hook and eyes.





 I also added and applique to the back, I dont see one in the reference images but I wanted to add something here.  You can also see that the satin stretched and I added 2 small pleats to the back to allow it to fit the collar.  The collar is a simple standing collar, cut to fit my neck measurement.


 

Here is the front of the finished cape, forgive my messing sewing room backdrop!  The only thing I have left for this costume is the parasol.  While I did get the parasol to usable before the event, there are still some details I would like to add to really make it match the cover.  I hope to finish this up shortly and will post about it when I do!