I must admit that, as a former seamstress who still guiltily has loads of cloth, I wondered both things. Sewing machines can be used to make those kinds of designs, however, it would be a time-consuming process. It could not be done on the lightweight fabric used to make the cape. She would have to compose it separately and then sew her composition on. All in all, its a lot of work to go through for an iffy prototype.
After it is designed, however, that's another thing. There are specialty machines that sell for about the same amount of cash as a leather couch which can be programmed to make one automatically. Martha would be a LARGE spool of each color thread on the top of the machine, add the CD with the preprogrammed design, put in her material and sit back to do her nails. If she owned such a machine, it would be no big deal to inexpensively and secretly make them at home. (What's so suspicious about buying primary colors?) Heck, I bet Clark could make his own. Also, I imagine the capes would wear out much faster than the s-shields. Since they are sewn onto the capes, they could be reused as long as they were in satisfactory condition.
Elisabeth
