AESTHETIC DALLIANCES: My Sartorial Forays & Roman's Super-Cape!

Super-Roman and his home-sewn cape.

When I bought my sewing machine last summer, I embarked on a long and perpetually unfinished journey through the many-splendid worlds of sewing and DIY projects. Looking back, I've been surprisingly prolific. I say 'surprisingly' because I'm fairly sure that Matt believed I would never make a single thing once I actually bought a sewing machine. Part of it is that I have an awesome, dedicated craft space in my house. Another part is that I discovered how easy it is to make everything and anything, including your own patterns, once I actually just gave it a shot. What have I made? Well...

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Brenda's Sartorial Forays

of the last year

Roman's blanket!

1. I made Roman this cute little travel activity book.

2. Then I made (no joke) 6 or 7 baby / kid blankets out of fleece, embellished with felt names (see above) and funny figures: several with elephants for my friend Frances' Ella (pictured above), for my friend Gabby's little Isaac, and two for my friend Sandra's twins Sam & Zoe. Oh and I also made one with a scooting ladybug for my friend Monica's new little Anna. Then I made a twin-size one with a butterfly for Ava and another twin-size one - Roman's - with a giant blast of color and his name in the middle. They were fun and by the end I was really good at it. :)

3. I made Roman and Ava both a pair of pants from this awesome tutorial, patches on the knees and all.

4. I've made three different paintbrush holder rolls, inspired by this tutorial. One for me, one for my mother-in-law and one for my sister's birthday (surprise Carla :D). I think Carla's definitely turned out best because it was my third and therefore had the advantage of me knowing what my mistakes had been, but I also REALLY love mine because it is made of a fantasmagoric coral-colored Geisha cotton fabric that I think I'll never, ever get sick of.

5. A couple of months back I also finally made the project that started it all (here's the tutorial), the reason I bought my sewing machine: a super-hero cape for Roman. I labored for quite a while on the colors to choose and the superhero emblem to use, partly because Roman himself is so conflicted on the superheroes he likes. He thinks Spiderman is mean (probably because he watches the 1950s episodes on Netflix in which he is kind of mean). He doesn't know who Superman is. And he's a little unsure about Batman, though generally that tends to be his favorite. Here lately he was given a Captain America doll, but, like his father, seems to consider him a bit of a wuss

Flying

given his lack of Iron Man-esque super powers. All this was too much input for me and in the end I decided to make it a Super-Roman cape. The "R" in all its glory centered on the back. And despite the fact that it's a double-sided, reversible cape, I left the inside blank and just made it a kick-ass bright, neon green that looks slightly distressed. Just thought that would be cool to have :)

Roman is not SUPER into dress-up yet (despite my desperate wish that he was), but I was pleasantly surprised to find that a cape had great appeal to him. He LOVES running in it. He likes how it flies behind him and makes pretending to fly all the more credible somehow. He didn't take it off for days. He ate in it, wanted to sleep in it, insisted on wearing it to school, and even though he hasn't worn it for a while, I know he still loves it. You should have heard him bragging about it and how "[his] mommy made it for [him.]" It kind of melted my heart. :)

It was a great choice for a simple sewing project. And I made it big enough that I know he won't outgrow it for several years. Score.

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So there you have it: my first year's adventures in sewing and the bountiful fruits of my labor. It's really a shame I didn't take pictures of most of this stuff. Maybe I'll request pics of the sewings in use with the kiddos and update this blog. Yes, I think I will. :) And here they come...