Documenting My Journey to Becoming Boba Fett
The final part will be the bottom hem. Here, I have it all pinned…
And, here it has been stitched…
The finished Tunic/Jacket. I don’t consider myself a seamstress by any means, but I think I did a fairly good job on this considering the lack of instructions and modifications that had to be done to make it more accurate…
Next will be the collar and sleeves…
The collar needs to be attached with two visible stitches, so I’ve pinned the outer seam first, then pinned the inner seam…
The collar was then stitched in place with two stitches…
Now, for the sleeves… The sleeves have a weird, long “cuff” type thing which appears to have a hidden seam where the fold is. So, to do this, I’m going to try folding the sleeve and running a stitch where it needs to be…
Here are the sleeves with the hidden cuff seam added…
Special note: Since this sleeve is sort of tricky to construct, with the cuff end actually being the INside of the sleeve and the rest being the OUTside of the sleeve, you have to plan ahead a bit.
For the hidden cuff seam, you must make sure you make your fold OUTside to OUTside, so you’re sewing the seam on the OUTside.
Next were the hems at the end of the sleeve. You must make sure you do this seam in reverse of how you would normally do it. So, in this case, you fold it over on the OUTside and stitch it…
And, here are the finished hems. As you can see, the finished side is actually the INside…
Next will be the long seams. They have been pinned up…
The long seams, sewn…
Special note: I didn’t realize this until after I had already sewn this stitch on both sleeves, but in order for the folding thing to properly work, you have to split the seam at the hidden seam, and sew this long seam in opposite directions.
So, in other words, the seam for the upper part of the sleeve gets sewn toward the INside, while the cuff portion gets sewn to the OUTside (matching the end hem).
The first sleeve pinned into the sleeve hole…
The first sleeve sewn in…
The second sleeve pinned into the sleeve hole…
The second sleeve sewn in…
Next I decided to start on the front…
The pattern includes pieces for the pockets, but they look nothing like the Tunic/Jacket images I found online. So, I’ll be attempting to create my own pattern pieces for these. The bottom outside panel should have a fairly large pocket, so I cut out two more pieces of that panel to start from…
The pockets need a top edge, so I figured it needs to be about 7/8 inch wide, and then added in my 3/8 seam on both sides to come up with the full width. The seam at the bottom needs to be hidden, so I pinned it up for sewing it this way…
both pocket pieces with the tops added…
Since no seams are visible, I will be using Heat Bond to complete the top portions…
I also used Heat Bond for the other seam of the top portions…
And, here are the pockets with tops completed… Nice & crisp!
I then pinned the pocket pieces to the original outer bottom panels…
The bodice needs small “code cylinder” pockets as well. So, I sketched up this to use as a pattern…
And, this is what the final piece of cloth should look like…
Pinned the pattern to cut the pieces…
The pieces cut from the cloth…
These pockets also need a top edge, so I used the same technique as I did for the bottom pockets…
both pocket pieces with the tops added…
The Heat Bond added…
And, the seams pressed to activate the Heat Bond…
And, here are the pockets with tops completed…
The bottom of these pockets get a hidden seam, so They pinned this way and stitched…
Then, the side of these pockets get a seam right along the edge…
Time to attach the bodice to the lower panel pieces. They get pinned up like this…
The bodice and lower panel pieces sewn together…
The bodice and lower panel pieces after being pressed…
Next, I pinned the bottom panels and the dart of the bodice to be sewn together…
The bottom panels and the dart of the bodice all sewn together. This went fairly well, I had to learn how to properly taper the stitch as it got to the top of the dart. The only thing I’m not happy about is the bottom came up short on the outer bottom panel. Not sure if this is a flaw with the pattern, or something I did wrong…
The other side bottom panels and bodice all sewn together, as well…
Next, I decided to attach the new front panels to the back panel, so I pinned them together…
The new front panels sewn to the back panel…
Next, I decided to attach the sides of the front panels to the back panel, so I pinned them together…
The sides of the front panels sewn to the back panel…
Now, to attache the zipper. To do this, I pinned the front pieces together, then stitched them together, like a normal seam…
The zipper was then pinned in place, running it down the center of the newly sewn seam…
I’m just guessing that the small front pieces with the interfacing get used here. So, I pinned one in place along one side of the zipper…
I then ran a stitch down the entire length, fairly close to the zipper and then pinned the other one in place along the other side of the zipper…
After running another stitch down the entire length, all of the pieces were sewn together…
The last step in the process is to remove the initial stitch that was made down the entire length, separating the front pieces…
And, we have a working zipper!
Time to start cutting the pieces out of the cloth…
First were the sleeves.
Next came all of the other pieces that required two mirrored pieces…
Then, the back part that only required a single piece…
All of those pieces cut out…
The collar and front pieces also need interfacing, so I cut those out as well…
As previously stated, the pattern comes with no instructions, so I’m just having to wing it. I decided to sew the back pieces together first, since they seem like the simplest. As a note, I’m going with a 3/8 inch seam. The three parts seemed to go together pretty well…
Next, I sewed the collar pieces. I had originally though the piece with the interfacing would go on the inside of the collar, but now that I have sewn them, I’m thinking the interfaced piece should go on the outside to help keep the “crisp” look of the collar…
Bought this at Hobby Lobby.
I figured out that I need “interfacing” for some parts (like, the collar) and a zipper. I measured and figured I needed a fourteen inch zipper. But, after looking more closely at some of the images of t he Tunic/Jacket online, I think I may need to get a longer zipper…
The Tunic/Jacket is one of the harder pieces to find images of for this costume. There are a few vendors that supposedly sell this part, but since it’s for the Galactic Academy, I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on something that will just get outgrown.
I found an Etsy seller that offers a pattern for a fair price. So, that’s what I went with.
After sizing the pattern down in Adobe Illustrator, I printed it out. It took almost 50 pages of paper…
The panel patterns ready to be cut…
The panel pieces cut out of the black cloth. I made sure the stretch of the material runs horizontally across the leg…
The top panel pieces, hemmed…
The top panel pieces ready to be attached to the bottom hemmed pieces…
The completed left panel ready to be attached to the left pant leg…
The left panel attached to the left pant leg…
The completed right panel ready to be attached to the right pant leg…
The right panel attached to the right pant leg…
The seams of the pant legs pinned and ready to be put back together…
The seams of the pant legs sewn back together…
The completed pants…
If/when I have to do these pants again, I did learn a few things that I will do a bit differently. Each panel gets three lines of stitching that run around the entire perimeter. I chose to use the middle line of stitch to be the one that attached the top panel to the bottom panel, and then the bottom panel to the pant legs.
This caused the corners to seem “floppy” so I had to go in and manually stitch down each corner.
I’m thinking it would have been a better idea to have used the outer stitch, that runs right along the edge of each panel, as the stitch to attach the panels together, and to the pant legs. This would eliminate the floppy corner issue, and would give an all around better look.
The material in the dye bath. The sage green dye is very strange.. When I first opened it, it looked purple (?). I added it to the dye bath, and it was making the material look like it had a “blue” tinge to it. We tossed an old hand towel in and it became a cornflower blue. I’m not sure if the bottle of dye was/is bad, or if that;s what it’s supposed to do.
Anyway, luckily I had some blue and yellow dye from an older project on hand. I was able to mix up some olive green and I added that to the dye bath. The test towel instantly started turning green, and the grey material had a slight green sheen to it.
So, I believe I saved it…
Here’s the dyed, washed, and dried material. Surprisingly, it turned out to be just about the right color I was going for…
