Completed Jedi Robe

Thanks to my husband for posing!

The Jedi Cloak is all finished, and ready to ship out. I finished the last of the seams today, and hemmed it up. I finally decided to go ahead and add a pleat to the shoulder area. I think the end result really looks nice, and the large spacious hood is exactly what I would expect to find in the Star Wars costume room. At a futur date, my friend might look into the matching tunics to make a complete Jedi costume (out of silk noil!), but for now, this wraps up my jaunt into Star Wars sewing.

I'm going to wait until after Christmas (to see if I have any new patterns or fabric funds) before deciding what my next project should be.

Jedi Robe: Change the Sleeves, or not???

Sleeve with a nice tuck/pleat

The unaltered sleeves

The final decision that I need to make on the cloak is whether or not I would like to alter the sleeves. The top picture shows the nice drape that results from a small pleat make right at the shoulder of the garment. The bottom picture is the sleeves as they look right now. I need advise. Which do you guys think looks better??? Again, if you need to see the real cloak, click here.

After this, I just need to finish a few more seams that are still raw, and hem the bottom to the correct legnth. That should be interesting since this is a gift, and that certain someone doesn't live in the area. A lot of careful measuring will be called for.

Jedi Robe: New Hood

The next step was altering the hood. I really disliked the way the hood on the pattern came to a point in the back. It looked a bit moroccan, but it wasn't what I was going for. I first tried to round out the pattern peice that came with the Simplicity pattern, but the hood wasn't big enough, and it still seemed to come to a point. I also didn't care for the seam placement or the pleats it used.

Instead of messing with the old pattern, I decided to make an entirely new hood. The Padawan's Guide had great directions that I was able to follow. The result was the second picture: it's larger, rounder, and falls the way it should in the back. The hood began as a large rectangle, and was gathered onto the neckline to the make the hood. On the front, the hood will even fold over a bit over the shoulders which is exactly what they did in the movies.

Jedi Robe: Altering the pattern

The gorgeous camel wool fabric for the Jedi Robes arrived this week, and the project is well under way. As a Simplicity costume pattern, it was very easy and quick to assemble. However, there were several alterations I wanted to make to the pattern to make the finished product nicer. Today, I started with the back of the robe. I noticed that the cloak was lying very flat, and wasn't draping as nicely as it could with such a nice wool. So, I added to pleats at the neckline in the back, which now helps the drape in the back.