Endor Leia Poncho

Since I've seen that this topic is one of the most viewed I would like to make a public announcement. 
Since I got the Star Wars Original Trilogy Costume book I've come to the realisation that the construction described here is wrong. It works to get the right look, but the collar and hood are constructed as one piece, and not as separates. /Updated 2015

We take a break in Queen Elsa in order to make a quick, but well overdue, project.

When I made my Endor commando and Rebel Briefing Leia my plan was of course to also make the full Leia Endor battle outfit, the only thing missing after all was the poncho. Well that was almost two years ago now, but I've finally made the poncho, or at least the fabric start. It also helped that I have around 20 meters of a sturdy cotton that I need to get into more managable piecec, it's the table cloth from my sister's wedding.

Now making making a poncho, that shouldn't be too hard, but of course as always with costuming there are some hidden complications.

The base for the poncho was simple. I took the full width of the cotton, fold it over so it was longer in the back and shorter in front and cut a hole of the head.

Reference for length of poncho

The tricky part is the hood and collar. As you can see there is a kind of poofy, piece of fabric around the neck, but you can't see the hood.

In this photo it's possible to see that the collar consists of two parts, there's a seam connecting the lower and upper part., the upper part is not attached to the neck opening, and you can't really see the hood.

I made the collar the same way I do a circle skirt, so it consists of two layers, and upper and lower circle, and they are sewn together at the outside.

The hood took me some trial and error, I simply made it too small at first. Here is a comparison with my first and second version of the hood.

Since the hood is always going to be worn hanging down the back I flatfelled the center seam to make it look good and don't show any raw edges.

I then attached the lower collar and the hood to the neck opening of the poncho. The hood was placed between the neck opening and the lower collar. The inner edge of the upper collar was hemmed, but left to hang free.

 In order to reinforce the the opening I sewed a piece of cotton tape to the opening, and hid all the raw edges under the tape.

 The last thing was to make two slits in the front, that I can put the belt through, the front is belted, but the back is left to hang free.

This is the final result. As you realise though, it's white, and not in camo colours. Unlike the Endor Commandos the heroes' camo outfits were painted on a white background fabric, the commandos have tan/beige background fabrics. At this time I went up to get my remaining paints from the Endor commando costume, only to realise that it's not enough paint left. I have ordered new paints though.

There is an event this weekend that I'd love to be able to wear the poncho for, but it all depends on if the paints get here in time, with luck they'll arrive on Wednesday and then I can paint the, let it dry until Thursday so that I can pack on Friday morning.