Greetings folks,
So in reality I completed this costume on March 23rd 2019. And I don’t actually have as many photos or footage of the final bits as I did previously. Mostly because this project was very time consuming in a ‘I don’t want to stop to take photos or I will lose my momentum’ type of way.
That being said, I do have some photos and other bits of info, so that is what I will be sharing today.
After I finished the jacket I moved on to making the shirt. I used pattern Simplicity pattern D0795 H5 which did not go super well the first time. The pattern instructions are not super duper clear and the fabric I used for shirt number 2 was awful. So for the third and final shirt I ended up buying a white linen and dying it to the color I wanted.
I don’t have a great deal of photos from the first attempt but I did video tape sections so that is all included here in the video I made for the shirt. It goes into the issues I had with this pattern in greater detail.
Long story short, good pattern, bad instructions.
This was also when I did the pants. Now in a lot of ways the pants were the simplest part of this entire process, because they only needed a little bit of alterations. At the bottom of Jyn’s pants she has a little pleating detail, and then a little band of webbing going around half the leg. So I took a pair of pants I found at Goodwill, and some blue fabric and went to town.
Now, I regret not taking the pants with me when I went to Joanns to get the blue fabric because the blues do not match. However, it does not bother me as much as I am sure it should.
I created the pleat pattern using wax paper first to make sure each leg would have the same number of pleats. Then I cut a rectangle from the blue fabric, hemmed all four sides, and then pleated it down. I also stitched down each pleat afterwards to keep them from flipping up, which is something I wish I had done on my yellow Luke jacket. Then I hand stitched down the entire rectangle onto the pants around the edges. The top fabric band and the grey webbing detail was also attached by hand. So the pants went by super fast. Like I think 2-3 days of sporadic work for maybe six hours of total time.
Now. The most time consuming, physically painful, frustrating thing about this whole project was her vest. And unfortunately…I have almost zero pictures. Because it was an absolute bear to make because I decided to quilt the entire beast. My fingers and hands were marred with pinpricks, my hands cramped a lot and my sewing machine tried to revolt against me not once, not twice, but about four times. For some reason I had enough video clips to make a video about it…but no pictures besides what went up onto my sewing Instagram.
So I will do my best to now explain my processes.
So I used the vest pattern that came with the Simplicity pattern, with some minor alterations. Like adding the collar, for example. Then I took the two front pieces and the back piece and stitched them down onto two layers of brown fleece. Because I always use fleece for quilting/batting/interlining. I then took a thread that was a lighter shade of brown and stitched out the straight lines across the front of the vest in all my reference images. I kept the two vest pieces on the same bit of fleece while doing this to make sure each side had the same number of quilted lines on it and they were all lined up evenly. For the back I marked all my stitch lines out with pencil prior to sewing. Then I cut them free of the fleece, added the pockets and other front detailing, stitched up the sides and added the collar and bottom band. The bottom band was also quilted, but because with only one layer of fleece between the two outer layers. I made the lining with red fabric and boom.
The black ‘wire’ detailing she has on the front of her vest that some people have used tubing for was done with black parachute cord. I tried to use an old cell phone charger at first but I could not get it to bend the way I wanted. But I don’t mind the cord, I like the matte look better then the shine rubber would have had. And then the last picture I have is the collar pattern I drafted. It was cut on a fold, and then folded in half and stitched around the edge before being turned right-side out. Same principal as a waistband mostly.
The belt and gun holster was made in one day. My sister drafted the holster pattern for me which I appreciate a lot. The belt is closed with four snaps at the hop and then the strap that goes around the thigh is another snap. The clip for the tonfa was handsewn on as well. A lot of small details and hand sewing in this costume.
The kyber crystal necklace started it’s life as one of those crystal points chandelier crystal type things that you get at Joanns. Which is in fact where I got my crystal. To fog it up and make it more natural looking my mother dremeled off all the edges and across it’s entire surface for me. Which was fantastic. And then I snagged some black yarn from my sister’s stash and secured it with a little bit of e6000. I just made the loop big enough to slip over my head, no clasp or ties or anything.
So, I technically still have two very little props to make that go with her vest, the little communicator tube thing and the ident card but for now I am calling Jyn Erso complete.
ANYWAY, here is the vest video from my youtube channel. I might make one more ‘getting into costume’ type video at some point and if so I will make sure to post it up here as well.
Eventually I will make a post on here of some full body full costume outfits once they are complete, but for now please take these head shots. Thanks.
As always please follow my sewing instagram if you are interested in more regular updates from me regarding my projects, thanks.
Cheers!
And Now Sewing 