The project that turned me to the Dark Side

So. Mark doesn't like to dress up for Halloween, but he's supposed to wear a costume every year at the clinic. He's been begging for me to make him a Jedi costume for a couple years now and finally I caved. I really wanted to just buy him one, but most of the costumes out there were LAME and cheap looking, even though they still cost a lot of money. I considered ordering one custom from Singapore or Hong Kong (that look fantastic--there's a lot of ebay sellers that make them, like this one), but it would have been at least $150-$200.

Looking back, I totally should have just shelled out the money. But then I wouldn't have had the pleasure of frantically trying to construct this costume a week before Halloween in the midst of painting, carpeting, other sewing projects and extra chaos that I had going on!!

I decided to go for the Obi-Wan look, because hello. He's by far the best part of episodes I, II and III, and Ewan McGregor has been one of my favorite actors for over 10 years. ♥

By the way, this picture was scanned in from a book I got for Christmas when I was in high school. If you didn't realize what a nerd I am by now, here's more proof.

Anyhoo, enter Simplicity pattern 0853:

 

I had to make cloak A (minus the dorky capelet and pointy hood) and tunic D. Not sure what the dude in C is supposed to be. A ninja?? Nice stance....

 

I had to buy SIX YARDS of material for the cloak. I had a little extra because of the omitted capelet, but still. I had to buy the whole rest of the bolt. This is polyester suiting material, which has a nice weight and hangs and drapes and billows in the wind, as a cloak should. Thank goodness for Jo-Ann's 50% off sale because this cost me $30 (would have been $60).

 Since Mark was home all last week, I made him cut out all the pattern pieces and fabric, mostly because I hate doing that part and because I wouldn't have been able to finish everything in time without his help. (There were about 20 separate pieces to cut out, twice. Once in the pattern paper and then again in the fabric.). Luke was constantly trying to step on everything...

 I kept saying, "See!? See how awful and tedious this is???" "Yes...."

I loathe sewing with patterns--and clothing construction is really not my forte. I spent so much time just trying to decipher the instructions that my eyes were crossing. Blah!

 

 I finished the cloak (mostly) on Sunday. Madelyn tried it on and got swallowed up by it. She could be a Jawa!

 While the carpet was being put in on Saturday, I'd gone back to Jo-Ann's with Luke and bought 4 1/2 yards of linen to make the tunic, 2 yards of interfacing, and 1 yard of white cotton for the dickey. Mark obligingly cut out everything for me on Sunday, but I didn't actually get to working on it till Tuesday afternoon (the day before Halloween...).

 (Madelyn likes to be in charge of the pins when I sew, and she made them all into smiley faces.)

 Well, I finally finished sewing at 1:30 am on Halloween. Good freakin' grief. I tried it on to make sure it looked OK. I didn't make it to bed for another hour, and then Luke woke up at 6:00 am, so I was (appropriately) a total zombie for Halloween!

 

Part of what took me so long was that I decided to top stitch everything, and then had to go back later with pinking shears and Fray Check to stop the raw edges from fraying everywhere on the cloak. It was so bad--there were tons of long strings coming unraveled until I fixed it.

 

  

With the tunic, I decided to turn under the raw edges and top stitch as I sewed instead of the pinking shears/Fray Check nonsense, but it took forevvverrrrrrrrr.

 The belt

 The dickey

 

About 13 yards of fabric ($75.00) and probably 20-30 hours of work between Mark and I. And then there were the boots!!

You can't just go around in any old shoes when you're a Jedi. And since this is going to be Mark's Halloween costume from now on (I've told him about 25 times that this is the last time I sew him anything), I thought they'd be a good investment.

I found some for a reasonable price ($36.99) at buystarwarscostumes.com but had to pay extra for fast shipping, since I ordered 10 days before Halloween. They did get here fast, but they were 2 inches too long!! (That's what you get for ordering shoes that only come in S, M and L.) So I had to then order a smaller pair and pay $13.00 to ship the first pair back. We got refunded the $36.99, but lost out on our original shipping costs, so altogether, getting those boots cost around $68.00, bringing the total for the costume to $143.00! GEEZ!!! Next time I am totally having someone with a lot more time and resources over in Asia just make one for me.

At least I have my very own Jedi knight now, which is a lot more than most women can say.