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Monday, April 20, 2020

Jedi Leia Pattern




I'm so excited to share this pattern because I know how many of us have been waiting since we were little to see Leia wield a lightsaber on the big screen! Originally I asked  anyone interested in this pattern to make a donation of any amount to  https://charity.gofundme.com/o/en/campaign/jeneyrecosplays-aclu-fundraiser . before I shared the files. Now, I'm sharing the files, but urging anyone who uses it to make a donation to : 

Rank badge: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1UNiqsW2vhXQWSFR7SuOAruhrclgCyjN9?usp=drive_link
 
Before I get into the jacket, let's look at the other pieces! I included the pattern for the belt buckle in with the jacket pattern. I made the belt buckle from the remains of the large sheet of aluminum I originally used for Leia's Senatorial Gown belt. I made the belt out of leather I had leftover from Episode IX Rey. I wanted to have a little bit of adjustability, so I used the same method I used for my Lothal Leia belt.

I used e6000 to glue the soft side of velcro to the back of the belt. At its smallest, and where it fits perfectly currently, the front edges of the belt meet in the center and a piece of hook side velcro can sit behind it for extra strength.  In this first picture, you'll see the d ring I added for the saber hook. Its a rather odd thing, as the bottom of Leia's saber also appears to have a d-ring, so I'm not sure how she'd hang it... the Force maybe? Anyways, I didn't want any attachment showing through the front of the belt, so I attached it to a small scrap of leather and e6000ed that to the back of the belt.
There's hook side velcro on the front of the belt that will hide behind the buckle, which has the loop side on it.

There could be about a 1" gap or so in the middle if I need a little more room in the waist. I have a piece I cut off the dyed belt I can add in there if needed.



Here's a top view (ignore the measurements on the tape on my cutting table)


And the front:





Colors are REALLY challenging when the scene itself and the behind the scenes shots are all really dark. I went with colors in the beige, tan, and light brown range, and looked for screen caps where one item was consistently darker or lighter than others. The pleating on the shoulder seams was consistently lighter than the jacket/tunic, and had a yellow tint in most of the shots, so I used pale yellow for that. The belt was consistently the darkest brown.

I made the pattern for the jacket.

The details on the sleeve of the jacket





 reminded me of the sleeves on the snowspeeder pilots on Hoth
so that was the technique I used. Quilting could also work, but I was worried that using enough batting to give the deep shadows we see on screen would make the sleeve too stiff. My pattern includes the base piece you'd use for either shoulder style. I ended up needing that width of fabric from the base piece but 1 yard 16" long for the top pleated part.







I used a fairly heavy twill for the jacket. It's likely a cotton/poly blend, and I'm guessing it was probably meant to be upholstery fabric because it is NOT breathable and water beads off of it. I had this in my gigantic fabric stash from when I bought a dozen bins of fabric years ago off of someone who was getting rid of their gigantic fabric stash. Fun fact! I'd also used this fabric for my husband's Yavin Ceremony Han shirt and had just enough for the jacket! The yellow for the sleeves was a cotton twill I'd originally bought for Leia's Hoth Vest. It was WAY too heavy and yellow for that, so it was standing by, ready for another project.


We could see topstitching on some of the seams in the screencaps, so I included that.

I included a collar facing piece in the pattern. The collar is hidden under the scarf, so I made a simple finishing with facing.




I added hidden snaps under the flap to keep it closed. The right side is folded over on itself and topstitched about 1.25" from the edge. The left side facing is a couple inches of the left side pattern, parallel to the edge. Stitch on those snaps before you sew the 1.25" topstitching so you can make sure you avoid having visible stitching for the snaps on the outside.






The pants are a simple pajama pants pattern. The tops are hidden under the jacket, so THEY HAVE POCKETS! In the photographs taken using my ring light, that fabric looks a bit shiny, so I also included a shot of the pants in my kitchen, where they aren't shiny. They'd never looked shiny to me until I fired up my ring light! There's nothing like building a Star Wars costume to make you doubt your own eyes!!!
And there's nothing like costume pictures you share publicly on the internet to make you realize you should spend more time sweeping and less time on costumes....

A few years ago, I did costumes for a high school production of Julius Caesar. And I bought A LOT of thrift store bedsheets to make the togas and tunics. A LOT. One of those bedsheets was a jersey knit. I cut out four 6" strips from that sheet, folded in half (so 3" high) and serged the raw edges.



They actually ended up being REALLY comfortable and they stay up surprisingly well! When I get down to the ankle area, I fold under the serged edge so its not visible on the bottom.



The boots are some chelsea boots from Pozu I found on Ebay. They're super comfortable!

The bandana was a piece of bedsheet leftover from that production of Julius Caesar. I hemmed the edges. The pant fabric was also left over from that! The gloves were vintage. They'd come in a lot of three pairs when I bought the gloves for Hoth Leia. I'd lent them to one of our local Reys for a VERY rainy and cold Halloween Parade. They weren't waterproofed and had gotten soaked through. I'd left them hanging in the laundry area for months to make sure they were thoroughly dry... I mean until I realized I needed a pair of medium brown gloves that went past my wrists and weren't shiny. Well, thanks to the water damage they weren't shiny anymore! Score!






Ohhh.... and hair! I have REALLY long hair so my challenge was getting it out of the way because the hair, for once, is not a noticeable part of one of Leia's costumes! I put my hair in two braids and pinned into the back of my head. I did natural makeup similar to what I do for Ewok Village Leia, as that was the scene they pulled Carrie's face from for this scene.



Check out http://www.jeneyre.com/2020/04/jedi-training-leia-3d-printed-parts.html for the "hard" parts of this build!


Info on donations to get the free pattern:

3 comments:

  1. Hi Jennifer, I wanted to make the donatin, but I´m redirected to another site and can`t find the fundraiser, there. Can you helpf me find it?

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  2. Hey! I've been meaning to close down the fundraiser and share the file freely, but haven't gotten a chance to update the blog. Here's the link to the pattern! https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lCL4sI4Yr12URRz6NbLqg3vMu6KF2qeZ/view?usp=sharing

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