Next in the series of designs that Miranda has requested is the rose capelet. (See also the Bunny Express Vest). This is another design that she saw in a Happy Happy Clover manga.
Here is the design drawing I found on my table. It was followed by several others, but this one I think captured the sense of it best. Basically it is a pink hooded capelet, with a cutwork lower hem and a rose and petal closure. She also explained that the circles spread across the shoulders of the cape are ‘sparkles’.
Capelet design drawing
Ingredients
- Cape/capelet pattern (e.g. McCalls 4703)
- Pink polar fleece
- Green polar fleece scrap
- Red polar fleece scrap (5″ square)
- 1 pants fastener
- Iridescent white sequins (approx 50)
- Pink, red and green thread
- Needle
- Aleene’s tacky glue
I used McCalls 4703 for the pattern. I used the short version of the pattern, but did not add the fur hem band. Instead I added 2″ to the length of the cape to allow for the cutwork. I used pink polarfleece for the cape, and red fleece for the rose and green polar fleece for the leaves.
McCalls 4703 Capelet pattern
I created the scallops by folding the fronts into even quarters and the back into 8ths. I marked the fold points and those marks are where I cutout between the scallops. I made sure the high points of the scallops started at the center front and hit at the sides as well. To create the cutwork I created a template for the cutout portion from a business card, then traced around it inside each scallop. I stay stitched both the lower edge of the scallops and just outside the traced line for the cutouts. I then cut them out just inside the stay stitching. I had so much marking chalk on it by then that I put it through a quick cycle in the wash. Good thing polar fleece dries fast because Miranda was hovering by then asking when it would be done.
Cutting the capelet scallops
To make the rose I used the pattern for felt flowers over at Crafted Sparrow. I ended up using red sweatshirt fleece because I didnt have any red polarfleece on hand. I’m sure either would work fine.
Capelet rose
For the leaves, I drew a pair of leaves with a space between them to mount the rose. I cut that out of dark green polarfleece and used light green thread to stitch in the leaf’s vein pattern as well as to reinforce the center piece.
Capelet Leaf pattern
After stitching, I re-trimmed the edges to get rid of the fuzzy bits, then used fray check to reduce further fuzzing. I reinforced the underside of the center piece with a small scrap of quilting cotton.
Caplet leaf reinforcement
Next I cut off one of the leaves, close to the edge of the reinforcement patch (sorry forgot to capture a picture of this). Then I sewed the hook portion of a pants clasp onto the underside of the reinforced portion of the leaf/rose assembly. I sewed the loop portion of the clasp onto the upper side of the leaf-only side. Then attached each side of the closure to each side of the cape at the neckline, making sure that the rose piece projected far enough past the edge of the front edge to be able to reach the loop. See below for a closeup that should help explain this better.
Yes, I was lazy and used the dark green thread I had on the needle rather than changing to pink like I should have. 
I’m definitely aiming for speed here rather than a haute couture finish.
Capelet clasp attachment detail
Next I attached the sequins scattered across the capelet. I used iridescent white sequins as these seemed more snowy and sparkly to me. Pink or gold would have worked nicely as well.
Here’s the finished caplet, then a closeup of the closure.
Finished capelet
Capelet closure detail closeup
