It's a Bird! It's a Plane! It's......SuperNephews!

My nephews are obsessed with Superheros.  Batman.  Superman.  Spiderman.  Ironman.  They know their Superhero stuff.  And it's amazing because my sister doesn't even let them watch these movies or cartoons.  It's part of the boy DNA, I'm convinced.

So I wanted to make them something extra special superhero-y for Christmas.  Yes, what I am posting about today, in March, was intended to be a Christmas gift.  Better late than...whatever, I'll start earlier for Christmas 2012.

I saw this adorable superhero cape tutorial on Pinterest that originated from Puking Pastilles:

I was sold.  I began assembling my supplies back in early December.  T-shirts in each nephew's favorite color, and a coordinating fabric for the logo, a print out of the letter in the Superman logo font, some stablizer, and determination.  I knew I was in for a lot of satin/applique stitching.

Since I had increased the size of the logo letters to about 700%, it had become all pixelated so I had to trace over it to get a clean cut guide line.  I cut out my patterns in the fabric and the stablizer all pinned together.

I pinned each logo to their respective shirts, and did a wide zig-zag stitch just to tack them together, and so I could get rid of the pins. 

Then the cursing fun began.  I had done the satin/applique stitch before, but on very long, straight lines.  Satin stitching these logos would end up trying my patience since I was guiding the needle around some short, tight curves, lots of direction changes and general guessing of where my needle should go to make it appear professional.

SuperD was my first attempt, and it was a valiant attempt, but it didn't cut the mustard.  I had to go over it a second time to fill in the many gaps.  Luckily I'm a quick learner, and SuperC and SuperJ went much smoother.

I was thrilled with how they turned out.  I sent them off in the mail to get the SuperNephews the proper gear for saving the world from the bad guys.  I was even more thrilled to get the picture of SuperJ, SuperC and SuperD all beaming in their new crime fighting gear!

All in all, once I got the hang of the satin stitching, it was a really fun project to complete.  As much as I'd like to make a SuperC onesie for my little man, or even a size 2T shirt, it would be too small to maneuver around my sewing machine while trying to apply a neat satin stitch.  He's stuck with the screen printed Old Navy superhero onesies for the time being.