Leia Rebel Scout - Star Wars IV - Poncho

The second part of my Leia costume--let's talk about the poncho! I think this poncho is probably what makes this costume somehow so cool and so dorky all at the same time. I really love the neat cowl neck hood and the free flowing back as design elements. This is perhaps the most underrated Leia costume there is.

I hope to do a photoshoot of this later this spring out in the woods somewhere. For now you will have to settle for crappy mirror pics, as I don't even have convention photos of this costume yet...

To see how I styled the wig, go here!
















After patterning and mocking it up, I then cut out the pieces in the real fabric and laid them out. I used watered down fabric paints and splattered and sponged on some different tones in mixed greens and browns. I actually really like how the camo pattern turned out.

You can see below the difference between when it was wet and when it dried.

My one difficulty here was that my brown paint had expired and I was stuck in the middle of nowhere. The paint kept separating and actually added some extra unintentional texture.

Right you can see the hood pieces laid flat. The hood is made of 4 "C" shapes that make up the outer rim, 2 rectangles (not pictured) that form the centre top of the hood and that one super weird piece the forms the sides of the hood and wraps around the front of the collar. The goal was to not have a seam up the front of the hood because there isn't one in any of my reference pictures. I think I managed to recreate it pretty accurately.

After everything dried, I ironed it to set the fabric paint and then sewed it together. 

The actual construction was super straight-forward--and unfortunately I didn't document it. 

I faced the side edges of the poncho and hemmed the front and back. The hood was first pieced together and then attached to the poncho neck hole. 

Some pictures of the finished poncho. 

The last step was to add the holes for the belt. Which secures the poncho in the front only. I faced and reinforced the hole. The process was similar to starting a welt pocket. 

Prince & Princess - Tube Heads - Katamari

Hey-o! So here's a look at how to make your very own Katamari tube head! ;D

First I took a 12" diameter sonotube and cut a piece that was 2ft long for each head. (I drew a guide line all the way around and cut it with a hand saw)

I bought an 8ft sonotube at Home Depot, so in theory with 1 tube I could make 4 heads. This is good news for group cosplays! XD

I compared the size of Miso's face on the tube to see how the size looked. If I remember correctly we determined it to be a tad small and made Prince, Princess and Nickel's faces a tad bigger.

Alex made the expressions for each face and sewed each on. Then she attached the yellow bias tape to the edge of the face to finish it off. Fantastic! :D

I set to work on cutting the neck holes. Using my handy workbench, I clamped the tubes down in preparation for dismemberment cutting holes.

I drew the shape I wanted cut, then drilled a hole big enough to fit my jigsaw blade in. With much caution--or at least as cautious as one can be while using power tools upside-down on a curve--I cut out the neck holes.

Then I had to decide where to glue the helmet. I marked the center on the inside and put the helmet in. Then I used an available human (preferably the one who would be wearing the costume) to determine the spacing for the placement of the helmet. I used blocks of insulation foam (hot glued in) as spacers to have the helmet sit at the right height and angle. I had some problems with this because the glue didn't really want to stick to the waxy inner surface of the tube... solution use MORE glue until it works! But in all seriousness, I should probably find a more reliable adhesive...

Other problems included the fact that Prince was to be worn by 3 different people, all with differing head sizes, neck length, etc. which made it a little tricky to fit it so that it would work for everyone.

Once that was done I cut out an eye slot using the same method I did for cutting the neck holes.

I went to Camp Connection (at Bathurst and Lawrence in Toronto) and bought 2 eggshell bed rolls. Instead of buying upholstery foam at Fabricland, this is much cheaper! It is also the perfect width for covering the 2ft wide tube.

I hot glued the foam--eggshell side in--to the tube.

Once it was glued on, I cut the holes in the foam for the eye hole and the neck hole with a pair of sharp scissors. Always do this after, just in case the holes don't line up.

Testing my fabric colour combos. I think I came pretty close to perfect! >:D

Then I created the pattern pieces for the end of the tubes using the bump pattern from the Katamari ball.The circumference measure for the base of the bump in this case is the circumference of the tube with the foam padding on it. Then you use  rectangle of fabric that spans the 2ft tube, falling a little short so that it pulls tight.

(In hindsight: It is also a good idea to add an extra inch to the end of each c-shape because you will need to tuck and hand stitch this sucker. I learned the hard way that this would indeed be helpful...)

I made these assembly line style. Always make sure to do the relief cuts before you pin it. Also, mark the 1/4 marks so everything lines up alright.

Then attach the next ring. These ones look like green eggs (and ham). :P

Next thing I recommend is to take packing tape to compress the end of the foam. It makes it 50 times easier to get the cover on. I tried it without and managed to rip the top circle on Princess's cover. D:

You leave the tube cover open at the bottom, the open seam going across the neck hole.

Mark where the eye-hole is going to need to be on the cover, and determine the placement of the face making sure it will cover the eye-slot. In the case of the Prince, a white rectangle also needed to be put down  under where the face flap would be so that the rather see-through fabric for the face wouldn't look green. (Obviously an unnecessary step for Princess.)

I took the cover off, sewed on the white rectangle and then remarked the eye-slot on Prince.

Then I stitched the tops of the face flaps on.

Using the markings I made for the eye-slot I sewed a rectangle where I wanted the edges of the hole to be. Then I carefully cut a hole in the center leaving a 1/2" seam allowance.

( In hindsight: Mark and attach the velcro squares to tack down the face now rather than later! You can easily machine stitch them on when the cover is not on. If you wait too long (or forget) you will have to hand stitch them on, which is not fun!)

Then I made a back piece for the slot, same as the front.

By making a relief cut into each corner, I was able to sew a rectangular tube into each hole. I was able to easily feed this through and tuck it into the face, gluing it in place on the inside of the tube. A very clean way to finish the eye-slot.

 Then make 2 foam core discs and stick them in each end. These with be hot glued in place later to help push the stuffing out into the ends of the tubes.

Each cover was then slipped on --more like wrestled, I made them very tight fitting so they wouldn't be loose--and stitched up. The neck hole was cut out leaving extra fabric to pull and hot glue to the inside.

Then the antenna--which had a yellow bias tape trim glue along the bottom--was stitched on. >:D Voila!

Princess - Dress - Katamari

The Princess was picked and worn by my younger sister Elanne. She is also a blogger, so be sure to check out Sweet Boake is you want to drool all over you keyboard while you ogle her delicious desserts.

So cute! I was really excited to make this one just because of the cute factor, and also--like Miso and Nickel--I have NEVER seen anyone cosplay this cousin. ;D

I based my pattern off the Miso pattern for the a-line dress, except I had to scale it down a bit.

This cream stretch was really nice to work with. But I always have trouble when working with fabrics that have a right and wrong side which is not dead obvious. To aid myself in remembering the correct side I always put a pin in the center of the piece with the pin head on the correct side of the fabric. This saves me lots of anger later. And time spent seam ripping. :P

I start with these 3 pieces which make up the dress. the front piece and the 2 back pieces. First thing I did was sew up the back seam and then flatten and put in the zipper.

I then sewed up the shoulders and side seams and finished the insides.

I did a standard roll over/fold over collar, finished with a neat ditch stitch. Dome fasteners were sewn on later to close the flap.

I had Alex make and stuff the tube that would become the roll at the bottom.

 Meanwhile I got started on a puffed sleeve mock-up.



...I think it is a little too full Alex... O.o

We pinned it in circle form and left it that way for a few days in an attempt to convince it that it really wanted to be a circle...

The real sleeve. I added a couple extra inches under the arm in case  it didn't fit properly. Then I used a hand stitch to lightly scrunch up the fabric before I sewed the sleeve on so it would get that puff at the top.

I cut out the strips that would be used as trim for the bottom of the sleeve. 

I scrunched up the fabric for the bottom of the sleeve and as I was pinning the trim on my sister came up to me and said, "You know, if the roll and the sleeve are both the same colour, shouldn't they be stuffed to match?"And I was like: D:< "No".

...But I did it anyway. :P

I attached it in a similar way to a fold-over collar. I stitched the 1 side of the trim to the front side folded it over and ditch stitched it. The only difference is I added in stuffing before I ditch stitched it.

I used a hand stitch to finish up the edge.

Sleeves finished! And they look SO CUTE! :D

Then I had the arduous task of attaching that blasted roll. I pinned it in place and got to work pushing it through the machine. The difficult part about doing this is that in order to get a clean attachment, you have to stitch over your line of stitching that hold the tube together EXACTLY. The problem is that because it is stuffed, it doesn't want to stay under the foot of the machine and is constantly trying to push you off your line.

So pushing it through becomes a 2 person job. D:

OMG tube attached. NEVER AGAIN. D:<

Then I set about adding the final touch: the bow. I took a strip of pink broadcloth and sewed the stripe to the garment on both sides. I hand stitched the bow in place afterwards.

At the back I made sure the stripe lined up, seam ripped the zipper at this spot to create a hole on both sides, and tucked the loose ends to the pink stripe in. Afterwards I simply finished the ends, resewed that part of the zipper and tacked the flappy bits down. :D

The roll was finished with a hand stitch, just like the sleeves.

And there you have it: one Princess dress! :D SO cute. It's really a shame she's still growing and this will totally not fit her next year... D;