TLJ Leia coat is finished (almost)

Over the weekend I finished the coat, except for hemming it. I started on Saturday, but then I was thwarted by the fact that I realized that I wouldn't be happy with the fabric I had for a lining, it was both too light grey and to flimsy. I needed another fabric. There are no fabric stores in my town and the one in the closest neighbouring town is closed on Saturdays. I wouldn't let that stop me though. I searched the two op-shops for anything that could work, but my hope of finding black taffeta curtains were squashed in a sea of red. There were just Christmas stuff everywhere. In the end I found two sets of 100% cotton satin bedsheets in white, and even if they were expensive at least they were marked down for Black Friday. Then it was off to the paint store, where they have a small sortiment of textile dyes, and I got all the black dye packages they had (4) for dyeing by hand and not in a machine. I spent the afternoon cutting up the sheets and putting them in a dye bath, I normally just put all the fabric in the dye bath, but I suspected that I had too much fabric and not enough dye so I wanted to just put enough fabric in the dye bath. I ended up with a dark grey fabric with a slight sheen to it, so I was pretty satisfied. I was also really behind my original time plan.

I used my coat pattern, and in the end the coat did go together really well. It's a simple design, with basically just four pieces. Wool and cottons are such easy fabrics to work with as well, you can make them do almost anything you want just with some steam and pressure. I did find the main fabric through etsy. Ever since I started thinking about doing this costume I have searched really wide on both etsy and ebay. This fabric showed up when I searched for grey wool. It's a black or very dark navy wool, with a chainmail pattern in grey yarns over it. The pattern and texture is great, but the fabric is a bit too soft and not shiny enough to be perfect. I am very satisfied with it though.

I sewed the lining the same way. In order to help the stand up collar I added fusible interfacing to the collar part, and down to the bust, on the inside of the lining. I then sewed the lining and outer fabric together at the neck and front by hand.

The lining photographs quite brown, but it is grey. This is the part with the interfacing.

On Sunday I continued with the sleeves. In order to make them more structured I also added fusible interfacing to the straight seams of the sleeves.

If you wonder why I have added the interfacing even out in the seam allowance it's because I don't trust it to stay fused to the fabric, so I wanted to sew it in place as well. I baglined the sleeves and gave them a good press before sewing them to the coat. I sewed the sleeves to both the coat fabric and lining, and then used the lining of the sleeve to cover the seam.

With that the coat is done. I need to hem it, and I want to wait with that until I have finished the underdress. All in all I really love this coat already. Since it's based on a mid 16th century loose gown

I definitely need to make one of those for myself. I guess with the older Leia I finally have a character that I can cosplay, with a body similar to my own. Both with this one, and the general Leia costume from TFA, it's obvious that the costumes are made to accomodate a fairly short and curvy person. The proportions and where the pieces emphasize some parts and hides some part of the body simply makes me feel that they flatter me and that isn't something I'm used to when it comes to cosplay costumes.

Now I need to start on the underdress, and I'm actually more worried about that. I have more fabric to make mistakes, but the fabric that I have will make every mistake clearly visible, and I don't have that much fabric.