The Great Cape Adventure

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I never thought I would be ready to make myself any sort of coat or jacket, but obviously in sewing I've been giving myself huge challenges and mostly coming out ahead.  So my next project was a cape coat jacket thing.  To make it even more challenging, I wanted to make it using the prettiest, softest plaid fabric in the universe.

ERMMYGAWD SO PRETTY (source)

This project's sewing challenges:

• Coats or jackets tend to have lots of complicated pieces
• Plaid requires matching up the lines
• Buttonholes!
• A collar
• Adding interlining (not in the pattern)
• Adding a lining (also not in the pattern) 

Whatevs.  I'll figure it out.

I knew I wanted a pretty simple design because a) that keeps things easy for me and b) the beauty of the style should be showcased in the design's simplicity.  Apparently although capes are becoming more mainstream, they're still not super common.  It took much searching to find this pattern:

 source

Even this pattern isn't perfect.  1) It has gun flaps.  Um, no.  Well, okay, that's about all that isn't perfect about it.  What it DOES have that I was looking for, besides the simplicity, are the arm holes.  I didn't like capes that used the sides as arm .. areas .. and sometimes they were pinched together to form a sort of sleeve.  Also, this pattern has hidden pockets.  Who doesn't like pockets?  The arm hole and pocket hole are actually one in the same.  This will take a little extra thinking during sewing, but after going through the instructions I think I get it.

Since the instructions don't call for a lining, this gives me creative freedom to make my own.  I don't anticipate this to be too complicated, but we'll see.  My plaid fabric is a bit thin so I picked up fleece backed satin for my lining for a little extra warmth.  After sitting on this for a while, I decided I still wanted a little extra warmth.  Basically because this should turn out too cute for words and I'll want to wear it as long as I can without freezing.  I did some googling on interlining but wasn't really finding what I wanted, so I just went to Joanns in search of inspiration.  40% of the wandering I do there is for inspiration, 40% is for drooling and imagining all the things I COULD do, and about 20% is actually getting what I went there for.  I wandered around touching things to see what might make a wonderful interlining for my little cape.  I found this stuff, which is absolutely freaking amazing.  It's so, so soft.  It's drapey.  It's glorious.  Okay, it's batting.  What is a cape but a glorified blanket, really?

And thus starts The Great Cape Adventure.  Stay tuned for more!