Resources for Leia and Padme costumes

 At Närcon this weekend I talked a lot to a person about Padmé and Leia costumes, and I realized that simply due to the fact that I was around while the Padmé costumes were being analyzed and before social media, I have a lot of information about them, since I followed the progress of my fellow costumers. Today there is a lot of info social media, but it's usually hard to sort through social media posts to find clear and structured information on the costumes. Thankfully though a lot of the early research was done on forums and websites that are still around, if you know where to look, and this post is my way of trying to gather them in one place. So yes, if you want to make one of these costumes, but especially Padmé's, then I really recommend taking the time to read up on old internet post and on forums that were made before the advent of everyone posting videos and short clips of what they are doing.

First of all if you want to make a Padmé or Leia costume, the best way to start is over at the rebellegion. The Rebel Legion standards are lists of required elements if you want to become a member of the Rebel Legion, even if you don't want to become a member those lists are clear instructions on what parts the costumes are made up of. The Rebel Legion also has a forum, where persons making their version of the costumes have posted and are posting their progess, so you can see how other people has tackled a specific costume. Those forums can be found here: Rebel Legion Royalty/Senatorial forums

The most comprehensive website out there for Padmé, and Leia and generic jedi costumes, is Padawan's guide. Maggie, who ran the site, did and amazing job of collecting all available info on the costumes, and it is split between reference images, fanmakes and construcions tips for each costume. She basically summed up all the research that was done and made sure it was available in one place. That it is still alive, even if it hasn't been updated in many years, is a great gift from Maggie to all Star Wars costumers out there today.

A lot of what Maggie posted were summaries on what was discussed on the Jedi Council forums' Costuming and Props board. Back in the early 2000s this was the place where all Padmé costumers gathered and discussed their costumes, and posted their progress. All the Padmé Amidala costumes have their own tag in the forum - so that can be found here. Most of the threads are locked nowadays due to having been inactive for too long, but they are still there and are fill with information. Leia's costumes can be found here.

One costume that I get asked about is the iconic red gown from Episode one, also know among costumers as the "red invasion" costume. Back when blogs were a big thing on the internet Naergi from Germany did an extensive analysis, and the best recreation of the gown I have seen. If you are interested in doing that costume, you need to read her blog post. She also has other Star Wars costumes on her blog, so can be worth looking into for other characters as well. 

With this piece of internet archaeology I hope I can help some people who wants to make their own Padmé Amidala costume, and don't know where to start. Compared to Leia's costumes, that were basically made for a low budget film, all of Padmé's costumes are complicated, either in cut and construction or in materials, or in both so making one will always involve a lot of work and usually quite a lot of money as well. 

16th century underkirtle

 Back in March I posted about constructing a new supportive underkirtle, using the barra system. Back then I only had some fiddling to do, and I hoped to have it finished in time for Leksand's Medieval Market. Well that didn't happen. With Project Toad going on I have had the project on the backburner, picking it up from time to time, but now it is finished as well.

I started with bodice. It's made from wool and with a linen lining. It closes at the sides with spiral lacing.

I was worried on how hard it would be to close it by myself, but when I switched the lacing from being laced up, as I normally do with frontlacing gowns, to lacing it down it was a lot easier. The laces are temporary, I will switch them for more historical ones before packing for Visby.

The skirt is cut in gores, and to be honest I mostly winged them, rather than following a pattern. That also to do with my getting some really low blood sugar while cutting them out, and low blood sugar leads to some strange decisions, but once done I couldn't change them..

I added the skirt, that was still wide enough that I needed to gather it to the bodice, and then I could try the whole kirtle on - and I was so dissappointed. Even if I had taken in the front seam some more, there was no support, even if it felt snug under the bust. The problem was that the straps were too long though, so when I shortened the straps, I finally got some support.

The result of the shortened strap is that it doesn't sit perfet at the back where it joins the back piece, but it is good enough.

Now it felt a lot better, and then it was only the hemming left.

The hem is done by adding a long strip of wool as a hem facing, that is my favorite way of making hems. I really like the extra stiffness it gives to the hem.

The finished kirtle, which ends at around midcalf.

Finishing Project Toad

 So as usual in the end stage of a project I'm not as good with documenting what I'm doing, but the project is finished and I will try to scramble up some finishing details.

In the last post I had just made the hats wearable, and it was only on to adding the big white circles on them. I cut out round shapes and then I glued them on, and that is where I hit a snag, and why you should always test things before going all in.

The textile glue bled all through the white lycra and I got really ugly stains, since I had just randomly squeezed the glue on. It being glue it was really stuck though so there was no way I could remove he spotted fabric. Thankfully I had some extra white lycra left, since I had bought too much, and I could just eke out five new circles. I had thankfully only done one hat at a time so for Toadette I knew it wouldn't work. I simply had to handsew the circles on to the hat. I can say handsewing on the big unwieldy hats was not comfortable at all, so it took me a whole day for one hat, because I had to take breaks. It took me some time to get energy to redo the blue hat. I was thinking about if I had to cut out an interlayer to prevent the stains from showing through, but in the end I was too lazy for that and I just sewed the new fabric on top of the old

This is the end result. The stains are faintly visible, but most people won't think about it, so I will keep it at that.

For Toadette's ball plaits I bought styrofoam balls and covered them in the same fabric as the rest of the outfit. Around the balls I have made a net of fishingline, that interweaves with the fabric, that way the weight of the ball is not just hanging from a thread at the top. The fishing line is almost invisible, and I have sewn it onto the main hat. My idea with the glued on hooks didn't work, when I noticed that one of the hooks had already gotten loose. I guess that they were made for static weight, not for the swinging of three balls hanging from it. I have sewn through the foam, but to prevent the fishing line from cutting into the foam I have looped it around empty plastic thread rolls on the inside, to distribute the weight better.

With the balls done I could make a first costume test, because I had sewn the dress inbetween working on the hats. The dress was simple in construction, but lycra is not a forgiving material to work with.

The pattern for the dress is a simple A-line. I made it by tracing a top, to get the neckline and sleeves good, and then to make it wider I added one triangular gore on each side. I then traced the finished dress to make a pattern for the vest. The vest was cut in one back and two fronts edged with a premade gold bias tape. To finish the raw edges of the sleeveholes, but on the dress and the vest I sewed them together and turned the vest to the front.

My dress was finished and it was time to make his vest, and apparently I didn't take any photos of that process. It was a simply e-pattern for a man's vest that I fond on etsy. The outer fabric was lycra, but to stabilize it the lining is a blue cotton canvas. Here the lycra came to the rescue. When I measured my husband the pattern was made according to his chest measurements, but it was too small at the waist. I solved that by removing the shaping darts at the front of the cotton lining, but I could keep them in the lycra, which is also made it stretch really taught and nice over the lining, and looks really good. I skipped the finer details, like welts and buttonholes so the vest is closed with some snaps on the inside instead

Wearable Toad hats

 The hats have been covered, but are still missing the white rounds on them.

We have discovered that it is impossible to fit the whole hat in a selfie, and that we can't kiss when wearing them. The following images are some taken when working on the blue version and some of the pink version.

With the growing size I realized it wouldn't be enough to just trust a good sized head opening to keep them on the head.

The solution was to make a liner out of grosgrain ribbons. That also means that the opening didn't have to fit very tight, since the liner would still keep it from sliding down.

I sewed the lining on to the foam base, with thick buttonhole thread and big stitches, to avoid weaking the foam with the stitches. I then folded the fabric and the foam over the edge and sewed that to the grosgrain ribbon as well.

Time for a fit check. With the ribbon and the fabric folded into it, the size of the had opening had gotten quite a lot smaller. I had to do some cuts in the foam for his hat. For my own hat I wanted to be preemptive and I cut the hole bigger. In fact it got too big, and with a too big headopening the hat slides around too much. It was easier to fix that by simply adding more wadding to the edge, and then removing bits of it until the hat sat snug, but not too tight. On this stage it is important that you don't feel any pain or pinching, I hope my husband was honest when he said it was comfortable (but heavy). If it feels just a tiny bit uncomfortable during the fitting will only get worse when wearing it for a longer time period

Toadette will also have her braids/balls hanging from the hat. For that I have attached clear plastic hooks on the foam base, so that I can attach them to that. I'm hoping that the glue will be strong enough to hold them. Since the lycra doesn't fray I will simply cut a hole for the hook in the outer fabric when it's time to attach the braids.

The final closing and adjustment of the fabric to make it lie as flat as possible was done by hand. It gives a bit of Frankenstein feeling to the seamms, but on the top most of it will be hidden by the white roundel.

Toadette also needs her ballbraids, and with the main hat finished I cut out paper templates to check what size they should have.

And with that it is time to also start on the clothes for Toadbert and Toadette. All in all after the inital building of the hats, the rest has been a more smooth experience than I thought it would be. 

A cute summer dress - Burda 6133

 Sometimes it's fun to just do something without a great plan or deadline. Since I have said that I will try to not buy any clothes this year and summer seems to be finally showing up I really wanted a new summer dress. My favorite dress of the last few summers is definitely too big now, I can wear it belted and I will see if I can take it in, so when I set out to buy wadding for project Toad in the only fairly local fabric store, I also decided to pick up something that would make a nice dress.

First I needed to find a pattern. I wanted a base pattern that wasn't too complicated, but still more interesting than just a sack with a belt. I also wanted a pattern that I could see myself modyfing and working with to make other dresses. In the end I went with Burda 6133. I liked the flare sleeves, but I could also see how I could change them for more regular sleeves. The panels in the skirt and the bodice also added interested and I could see how I could combine different fabrics for the bodice and the skirt for example.

I picked up the fabric in the store, and this is what really is the joy of physical shopping. I am normally not very fond of florals, but this was a more modern floral, and the colours matched my har perfectly.

The pattern was a dream to work with. Burda nowadays does a lot of its patterns as e-patterns, so I bought it and printed it. The pieces weren't terrible large, so I didn't have to tape too many pages together at ones, that also meant that it was fairly easy to place on the fabric and cut out as well. The only thing I will say about the pattern is that I didn't see, or I missed the notches for the front and back of the sleeve.

The fit of the pattern was interesting, especially for me that hasn't worked with a big pattern company pattern in a long time. I bought the pattern in the size that I have when buying clothes, which was the largest available for this pattern. Then I took a look at the measurments given, and according to them I should have a size 2-3 sizes bigger, my waist measuremnts was almost 10 cm larger than what was recommended on the pattern. commercial patterns have a lot of ease in them, and in the end the waist fit perfectly. The only thing is that it is slightly tight over the bust. For future use I will probably just use a slightly smaller seam allowance at the front bodice seam. I used 1,5 cm and 1 cm would probably have made it even better. One things about the pattern is that unlike all other commercial patterns I've worked with it didn't include any seam or hem allowances, so I had to add them in myself. For the length of the skirt I used the B length, but I added 4 cm, which made it end up somewhere between the A and B length.

The pattern was really easy to sew. I don't think I even looked at the pattern instructions. The most complicated thing is to install the invisible zipper in the back. The one thing I changed from the pattern was that I didn't close the slit in the front, instead kept it open, and I used bias tape as a hem facing instead of regular double folded hem. In all it took me one evening to cut out the pattern, both from paper and fabric, one day to sew the dress, I then had it hang over night before hemming the skirt and sleeves.

For once I actually took care to make sure that inside looked nice as well, normally I just zigzag the edges on the inside. I want this to stand up to a lot of wear and washing, so for this I encased all the seam allowances. Where I could I used french seams, which is starting to get a favorite seam of mine. It doesn't take much longer than first sewing the seam and then overcasting it, especially on straight seams, and almost all seams are straight on the pattern. Where I could I rolled the seam allowances up and sewed them so that now raw edges were visible.

All in all it was a fun and easy project I can definitely see myself using this pattern more and make dresses in different lengths and with different sleeves from it.

Toad hat covering

 The hats are of course not meant to be white, it was time for them to get a fabric covering. By now the hats had grown so large, both with the raising of the foam and the wadding, so I decided to make a new pattern for the fabric, rather than trying to use the old one.

I simply added a piece of pattern tissue on top of the hat and while feeling with my fingers where the seams were on the inside I traced it on the outside.

Here is a comparison of the original pattern for the foam, and the finished fabric pattern. It is pointier in the top where it will go together, while the bottom is more blunt since that will go to the head opening.

For fabric I used a sports lycra, the kind you use for swimwear. The fourway stretch is very forgiving, and I also liked the sheen of the fabric. When I cut the pieces I didn't add any seam allowance, but then when sewing them together I used 1,5 cm. This was perfect to make the fabric stretch over the hat and take away any bumps.

It still looks bumpy and and uneven here, but that is because I haven't closed the top. I can't do what until I have installed some way of helping with wearing the hat, and I can't do that without my husband since I need to fit that on him. Since I still haven't got the fabric for my own hat that means that I have to make a halt in this costume project. A good thing is that I could just eke out the hat pieces from just 1 m of fabric, so now I know how much I will have to order for myself, since the fabric is quite expensive and I can't see myself using it for anything else I don't want to buy extra fabric just in case.

Raising the hats

 So when I last posted about the Toad hats I had cut them in half because I wasn't happy with the proportions.

The original hats

To make the hats taller I added around 10 cm of a foam where I had cut them up. 

I didn't just glue a piece of foam in the gap, I glued the foam strip to a larger foam strip, and it is mostly that one that is glued to the inside of the hat that keeps the foam strong enough. An unexpected result of this extra piece was that it helped to make the hats more round.

I think the husband actually looks a bit scared of the hat.

The next step was to cover the hats in wadding, to hide all the ridges in the foam. I started with glueing the wadding sheet to the middle of the hat. I used wood glue for this, worked perfectly.

I then folded the fabric over the edges, and where there was extra fabric I pinched it, like when you make a fabric dart, and simply cut the excess fabric off.

With the increase in height and the extra wadding the hats are now quite heavy, so I've stalled the project. I need to come up with a good way of fitting the hats to our heads as comfortable and stable as possible, while also making sure that we don't stress the hats too much when wearing them, or taking them off.

And here are the hats in their current state.

I couldn't even fit the hat in the frame when I took a selfie.