Jedi / Light Side Making A Jania Solo costume!

Alrighty, first off thank you very much for taking the time to read this! I am Fourteen years old and me and my Identical twin sister are HUGE Jaina solo/star wars fans. (to give you an idea we watched the opening of star tours this morning and were screaming like school girls.... well, not like normal school girls... ANYWAY.

For Halloween this year we are going to Disney lands Halloween party and because we are such fans we wanted to make a Jedi costume! we got the pattern Simplicity #5840 (http://www.simplicity.com/p-2272-misses-men-teen-costumes.aspx) and then i had a great idea! "Hey, why don't we make a Jania costume, i mean we'd only have to tweak the costume a bit!" OH BOY was i wrong! i started to look through the internet and came across a post on this wonderful website! (http://boards.theforce.net/costuming_and_props/b10019/22820556/p1) and then i knew it was going to be REALLY Really hard! my mom has some basic sewing skills, and we are kinda on a budget. so i was wondering we've never created a pattern before so would anyone be willing to share they're Jania solo patterns? or could point me in the direction of where i would find one that we could use that would require minimal tweaking? we were thinking any Jaina costume would work, we wanted it to have sleeves and be somewhat modest. (we are only fourteen after all )

any help would be great!
Arica and Family.

Thank you and may the force be with you!

God Bless the USA, And a Galaxy far, far away...

 

Hi Arica!

I assume you mean this version:

[image=http://www.jedi-business.com/images/actionFigures/The-Legacy-Collection/The-Legacy-Collection-Jaina-Solo_Big_6.jpg]

If that's the case, the simplicity pattern is a good start. What you would need to do is make their generic Jedi costume, but just have it more form-fitted to yourself and change a few things. Also, don't make the obi (belt sash).


First thing you EVER need in a sewing project is a fabric called muslin. It's a cheap tan/white fabric for you to make a mock-up of your costume with.

Cut out the pieces and sew that together. With that costume sewn, you can make adjustments to make it more fitting to yourself (I'm sure you can find online some tutorials on how to alter clothes, but the easiest way is to turn it inside out, wear it, pin in the fabric that needs to be taken in, and sew along your pin lines).


I have a few ideas on how to easily make the two-toned part of the tunic. You'd need to create your own wider obi, but those are really just long rectangles of fabric so they're pretty easy. Let us know what you need help with!

(And if you're going to Mickey's Halloween, I'm assuming you're in SoCal?)

 

That's the costume! (my mom's really happy we don't have to buy ANOTHER pattern)

thank you so much, my mom, sister and i will be starting work on this project on July 1st! YAY!

Muslin is a magical, force filled material that i adore, but i never though of turning the fabric inside-out to make it fitted like that! see, i knew I'd learn something!

I do not live in SoCal but i do live one of the bordering states to California. (for privacy i won't say which one if you don't mind... )

Thank you so much Miana Kenobi!

just one more question, we're going to have to wait until July to start sewing, but we are starting to look at fabric, what would you suggest? we need it to be light weight so we can walk around the park and ride the rides, but it will be September so I'm going to guess it might be starting to get a bit nippy. we were thinking cotton, what's your thought?

Thank you! Thank you! thank you!

Becasue we won't be starting until july, i really don't know what kind of help we'll need but i will TOTALLY keep you guys in mind! thank you! thank you! thank you!

May the Force be with You!
Arica.

 

No worries about the location thing; I'm the XO of the Rebel Legion group down here, so I was going to offer whatever us locals could to help in terms of sewing.


As for the fabric choices, I avoid cotton. It has no texture and just looks bad and too "cartoon character" for my likes. I have a few friends with amazing Jaina costumes so I'll ask what they used.

 

Here's something to inspire you, AricaBolts:

[image=http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e385/JedHead1/Star%20Wars/_MG_2124.jpg]

 

... which is who I'm asking about the fabrics. XD

 

Wow! That picture is awesome! Is that your costume? Did you use the Simplicity pattern mentioned above? I'm now realizing just how many awesome outfits Jaina has! LOL.

Mirica
PS: Hey sis!

 

So I asked her about the fabrics: she said it was a suiting fabric that she found somewhere. I'd go for suiting-type fabric just for the texture; you don't want to use plain cotton since it makes you look like a cartoon character.

 

Its a friend of mine. This was a pic taken during a studio session we took together in costume. I talked to her at the opening of Star Tours last weekend, and she said she's gotten a better lightsaber now.

 

Okey-Dokey, just an update from the sister of the 'asker'...

We made up the pattern in a size medium which was supposedly right for our body sizes, but when we went to put it on..... Let's just say, not a Jedi costume, let alone a Jaina costume!

So, i asked my mom for pointers, thinking maybe if i put the sleeves up higher, and made this and that and another thing different, i could make it work... She commented that a Jedi robe looked very much like a bathrobe ... I decided to look through our patterns and use my imagination and i found a Simplicity pattern that looked sort of like it... When i sewed it up this moring It Was PERFECT! LOL. (3988, It's a 'That's so Raven' pattern meant for Girls (10-16 or something like that) it's the robe the model is wearing). It sadly doesn't come with and Obi, but 'Arica' was more than happy to help me make our own really simple pattern for one... basically, a long rectangle. Anyway, we're going to a massive fabric warehouse tomorrow to check out fabric!

If anyone else (Who's not a young girls size) Wants to make this pattern, i think it would only require a few modifications.. the pattern peices are rather simple, and the robe (Crossed over, with an Obi looks very much like a Jedi costume... especially in white muslin!) is meant to hang VERY loosley, so when my Sister and I (who are both a size larger than the pattern goes)stepped into it, it fit PERFECTLY! I imagine you can cross it over as you need to, in order to make it fit a little differently for everyone's different sizes, or trace the pattern a little larger.

Okay, just wanted to give everyone a quick update... Thank you to everyone for all the great tips! Hopefully, we'll have some finished pictures someday between now and October....

Meghan

 

Alright, we found a perfect piece of fabric ... problem! there's not enough! it's a piece of suiting material in a tan with a slight green tinge... it's absolutely perfect , right price and everything ! But not enough for one if we want identical costumes...

But my mom says we'll go to another store and see if we can find more , I had a question for y'all... where are some best South-West coast places to shop for fabric cheap... (We found the suiting for 3 something a yard...)If you need me to cut down the location I'll PM it.

Thanks!
Arica.

God Bless the USA and a Galaxy far far away...

 

Alright, my life has calmed down enough to post!

We Went to Johannes and looked at the suiting material, we figured out that with the yardage we'd need the tunic would cost a lot, and we needed money to go to the party Lol. so decided against it.

But then we found Shantung, in Champagne... It's a little lighter then Jaina's outfits okay a lot lighter, but we're still Jedi! We bought Nine yards of it, it's been sitting in the bag for a while and I?m hoping to work on it today...

My sister and I have also been debating over belt/lightsaber/accessory?s... I?m making a Japor snippet as a necklace (maybe as the ignition button on the lightsaber as well that's still in debate.) then comes a part my sister and I can't agree on. The Belt. My sister says we don't need it that just the Obi Will be fine... I?m thinking we need the belt to hang our lightsaber on, so now we're not sure. And if we do do the belt I?m wondering how big it should be, it looks like one big belt and one little belt on top... [image=http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20061129205361/starwars/images/5/54/JediBelt-CVD.jpg] But we're on a budget and I?m wondering if we were to use just one belt instead of the 'Layered' Belt. I?m thinking no one really pays attention to the Jedi?s belt, more to the lightsaber anyway.

Then there's what to put on the belts, I?m thinking we need a pouch for our cell phone that can take the place of the 'Breather pouch' it's about the same size. Then I?m thinking just the lightsaber, that way when we ride rides it's not like we have sixty things to take off. (whenever we ride a ride we take off lanyard, hats, cell phones that kind of stuff and put them in the small pouch in front of us, I figure it's better then losing it and only takes a few moments!) Again the belt is a plus of the Jedi costume.

Then comes the lightsaber, (my favorite part!) my dad's in NJ right now (he's fine, Made it through Irene no trouble.) and we hope he'll be back before we need the lightsaber done if not we'll have to stick with the ones we have. We made them with a wooden dowel with Easter eggs on both ends we made for two Halloweens ago; everyone thought we were vampires, until we pulled out our lightsaber. They didn't extend but hey, it got the point across! Despite the strange sounding items they look very nice! The only reason we're making new ones is that a kid knocked into me and broke the Easter egg on the end . Back to the point, we only want the Hilt, by making it ourselves it?ll be too much to make it extend. We?re going to use PVC pipe this time and some various wooden shapes from Michaels. Then spray paint it. Only we're not sure how to connect it to the belt... (Or whatever we use!) Holding it isn't a good idea because we'll be in the park with a ton of other people and need our hands free. So it needs to connect to the belt. The old ones we just tied to a string and tied around us. After the fact we bent a wire hanger with a rubber casing and it made a good clip, only problem was the paint NEVER dried, to this day (two years!) so not going to do that again, I?ve been all over the internet with this and most say to use pager clips. (Where do you find pager clips?!?) And how to you stick a flat clip onto a round hilt?
We?re on a tight budget, my mom said she?d buy the fabric and that?s it. ($50) and we?ve already priced out the lightsaber as about $5 (already have about seven feet of PVC!) our original budget was $80 so we?ve got $25 bucks left? anything we can do with this much??
And then the question of all questions; I?m wondering with all the changes we've made if it won't look like a Jedi costume anymore?? (I know it won?t look very much like Jaina, but I think we?ve switched into a more ?By Us? kind of Jedi?

Wow that?s a long post! I think I remembered everything!

Thank You Guys So Much For All The Help And Advice!
Arica And Mirica.

 

Alright, so by a stroke of luck (or the force!) my dad came home in time to help my sister and I with some stuff,we painted the lightsabers and will glue them together on Friday (tomorrow) and the muslin has been perfected and so now that's ready to go, and for a belt my dad had these old belts hanging around and they were worn and beautiful and perfect so we're going to use those!

Just wanted to keep everyone posted!

Arica.

 

Well Jaina's belt and the generic Jedi belt you posted are 2 different things, so I guess it depends on what type you go off of. There is no right/wrong answer for how big your belt should be; judge it on your own waist to see what size would look best. Smaller belts work with smaller people, larger people look better with larger belts, etc.

 

Alright, we've Finished the costume and the Belt and the Lightsaber... now all that's left is to wait for the party!

I'll ask my mom about posting pic's when we come back from the party, until then it's time to breathe!

Thank you so much for all of your help!

Arica.