Part of the fun of having a little boy who is superhero obsessed and loves to play dressup is that I can take my sewing skills and make things that he loves.  Like, loves-loves.  So much so that he pretty much refuses to smile at the camera and only wants to make “scary faces” because Thor is super tough.

And when you’re being Thor, that means that you’re also super tough and smiling isn’t really an option.  Come on, Momma.  You should know better.

A month or so ago, we were shopping at our favorite place ever: Target.  (Wish I were joking.) While there, Louis and I stumbled across a Batman tshirt with a cape that is velcroed on.  Apparently it is the best shirt ever.  Because he wore it that night, the next day, to bed that next evening and then begs to wear it anytime he can, so it’s constantly needing to be washed.

Also.  We aren’t really “DC Comics people”.  We are “Marvel People”.  If you don’t know the difference, you clearly haven’t gone down the nerd wormhole like we have.  Batman is cool and all, but he’s not a part of the same Universe that we spend the majority of our time talking about…so I find it mildly pointless for him to keep repping the Dark Knight.

The problem with Marvel is that there aren’t really a lot of heroes that wear capes.  Mostly because they’re inhumans, mutants or just skilled marksmen and capes are more for a different breed of hero.  But the cape was the major selling point of Lou’s Batman shirt.  So Thor it was.

I mean.  The Mighty Thor.  Of Asgard.  He’s a god.  And his hammer has a name.  He’s pretty cool in our book.

To bring this entire look together, I used TWO of my favorite patterns.  The shirt is Patterns for Pirates’ Jolly Roger Raglan, decked out to the nines.  And the pants were my first go-round with the Kudzu Pants pattern by Willow & Co.  Both are patterns I planned out for my Time for School Capsule for Louis…and both are totally wearable for my handsome little man!

We are totally putting the “fun” in functional with this outfit!  Yes, I went there.

Having clothes that are basically costumes but act like real clothes are the best kind of clothes.

So what did I do to make this totally rad shirt?

First, after cutting the sleeves, I took a permanent marker and drew lines every two inches.  Both vertically and horizontally.  (Don’t be a dork like me and stop to take a picture…or else you’ll get an annoying dot in the middle of your sleeve.  Oy.)

I appliqued SIX silver circles and one “belt” of yellow.
To get the circles, I just traced two different sizes of mason jars.  Because having something to trace is my only way of making good circles.  The top four are around 3.5″ in diameter, the two bottom circles are around 2.75″.  And the yellow belt came out to be 3.5″ x 14″ and was placed with the bottom measuring around 3″ from the bottom of the tee base.

I simply did a topstitch on all of them to attach the designs.  Because I’m working with knit, there was no need to worry about the edges.  Leaving them raw was fine with me!

To make the cape, I made a 16″ x 16″ square of fabric.  At the top, I cut angles into both corners, to make it more “cape-like”.

Then I took some velcro (the kind that doesn’t need sewing because I weirdly hate sewing velcro) and stuck it on.  I made sure the cape came over the shoulder juuuuust enough so you can catch a good bit of red from the front.

Tadah!!  Totally. super-duper, incredibly awesome tshirt for a kiddo to sport around.