Making an Xmen Storm Cape

It’s already the middle of November and my Halloween high is long gone.

I worked for over a month creating mine and my partner’s costume and in one quick night, it was all over. This left me feeling empty and incomplete so I began considering what else I could create. After rummaging through my cupboards, I came across an amazing white wig that I have only worn a handful of times, and then it came to me. Storm from Xmen.

A lovely brown character that I wanted to be ever since the movie franchise began.

I am not talking the full leather jumpsuit from the films though. No – I mean the Marvel character who has an incredible head piece, a cape, long leather boots and a body suit.

Suddenly it was decided. This would be my new project for the next while.

Storm is my newest cosplay

Starting off was simple enough because I already had some black velvet left over from the capelet I had made for my Halloween costume. I was happy because I knew I would have no other purpose for this remaining fabric which was an odd shape.

Leftover velvet from my round capelet

I began to examine images of the original comic and saw that Storm's cape was quite unusual in that it attached to her wrists and dipped underneath each arm.

I took the remaining velvet and cut it apart which left me with two perfectly shaped semi-circles. They were a little big but it was no matter because it still meant that the fabric wasn’t going to go to waste.

The process began with me laying the two pieces over one another so that I could get them symmetrical and round the edges more similarly to her cape because at this point, they were square on the edges.

Rounding the edges

I purchased an amazing gold stretch fabric that I would use to line the ends and began to pin it.

The gold shiny fabric

Pinning is important because it helps you to see what will work and what looks good. Initially I was going to stop the gold at the salvage edge but realised it didn’t look that great, so I took it all off again and started over.

Pinning the fabric for the first time

The fabric had points on both ends, so I cut one off each side where they would connect to each other, and eventually connect to the costume.

Cutting one side to join together

BEWARE when you are doing any cutting because I lay the pieces on top of one another both with the velvet facing one way (the flocking was only on one side) and cut. When I took them apart I realised that I did not have two mirrored pieces but two identical pieces for one side.

If you have velvet that is the same as mine, then make sure when you stack them with the velvet is facing outwards on both pieces. That way when you cut, they will be opposing pieces.

Once I corrected that error (lucky I had a lot of fabric) I began to look at how it was going to hang off my arms. I pinned it to the back of my dress and put on two gold bracelets which I thought I would somehow drape the fabric off of.

Once everything was the right size and the way I wanted it, I set it down and began to pin the gold back on, only this time leaving the very top of the cape bare.

I very slowly and meticulously began to sew the gold on. It was extremely difficult because it was almost rubbery which made it difficult to move under the foot.

Eventually I got all of the pieces on and changed my thread out for black so that I could hem the top of the cape. This went a LOT quicker.

Pinning the velvet

With both sides complete, I put the ends together where they would connect to the costume and did a straight stitch down so that they would become one piece.

Stitching the pieces together

At this point I realised that I had some excess gold fabric and instead of the jewelry, I decided to make gold bands for my wrists.

Measuring the gold bands

Like I said, the drape was quite low and for this reason, I made a second band for each arm that would go over the crook of my elbow.

Storm’s cape does not do this – hers just comes off of her wrists, but in order to make mine aesthetically appealing, I hand stitched two sets of bands in.

That was the last component and quicker than I realised, I was done.

Second band for the elbow

I wanted to see how it would look with the wig and something similar to Storm’s costume, so I did a mock up and loved the way it all looked together.

I will be making the entire costume myself meaning the outfit you see here is not the complete costume. I am just having a hard time finding a black stretch fabric with an almost leather like sheen.

Mock up Storm costume with my finished cape

I’ve been to two fabric stores so far and will continue my search until I find what I am looking for.

Until then, why not check out my latest video and do please let me know if you are aware of any fabric stores that might have what I am searching for!

If you are looking for the full Instructable tutorial then you can click here.

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