Rogue Trader Cape

My husband is playing in a long-term roleplaying and LARP campaign set in the Warhammer 40K universe, as part of a Rogue Trader crew. Their crew is consistently the best costumed (here is a picture of them from last year - I wasn't able to find a link to a more recent photo), but his outfit at the moment is made up of pre-existing pieces put together, nothing custom made for this character.

I'm making him a short cape to go over his outfit, and to make it very special I'm embroidering a symbol on the back. I'm using the Truly Victorian 1890's Cape pattern TV590, not because I think it is the best 40K look I can find but because it is one I have access to! I'm going to use some interlining to make the shoulders stronger and more masculine, but this Rogue Trader crew is all about the gaudy, so a Victorian pattern seems to fit that. The fabric has a nap, and looks like suede. The colour of the fabric has not come out clearly in these photos, it is a darker, warmer red than that. The lining will be in a gold; I haven't found quite what I'm looking for but as it should take some time to finish the embroidery I have plenty of time to look.

They have a crew symbol, and his own symbol is very slightly modified from that - the skull at the centre has a monocle.

I've just started doing the embroidery on the back. I'm doing the outlines of the empty shapes in chain stitch with DMC metallic gold thread (two strands). I traced the lines I needed onto greaseproof paper, basted over it with white thread, and then ripped the paper off, so I could embroider over the guide lines.

For the solid sections, I'll pad with yellow felt and satin stitch over the top. I'm leaving the words til last I think, as they'll be the most fiddly.

Here it is, ready for me to start the second phase of the embroidery.

I'll post more updates as the cape continues. I hope it looks quite striking when it is done. I'm quite pleased to have something I can craft and give as a gift to my husband - he's a very hard man to craft for. He's been involved with the planning of this from the start, and it has been fun getting him to make decisions about collars and styles of cape front and what embroidery stitch he wanted me to use (although he did say 'I can't really see much difference between them' when given five different stitch options. Sigh)