Happy Belated Star Wars Day!

I had been hoping to get this post out on Monday but I’ve been more than a little busy! If you follow my Instagram, you know that I made this amazing (in my *humble* opinion – LOL) Hoth Leia vest for May the 4th and I wanted to give a little background on my outfit!

If you know me personally, you know I was never a self-proclaimed Star Wars fan. You may also know I had never seen the movies. I sort of just ignored it and knew about Star Wars, but not necessarily anything of substance. In order to explain what happened to change that, I have to go back a little bit. The last week in April, we made the decision to have a Spirit Week at work to get morale up and have a little something extra to look forward to. We weren’t sure what participation would be like, but it was a hit, with team members asking for more! On Tuesday of last week, I had no less than three managers request we celebrate Star Wars Day. I discussed it with my manager and she said “send out the communication”!

So I sent out an email to the team to extend Spirit Week into this week with May the 4th. The only issue was, I had been killing it with my Spirit Week outfits (if I do say so myself) and I had NOTHING for Star Wars Day. I couldn’t let my coworkers down, I couldn’t let Instagram down, I couldn’t let myself down. I had to have something.

The next thing I did was check Amazon and Target and try to find something that would work! Well, I did, but anything I liked wouldn’t arrive until May 5th. Bummer. That’s when I decided I’d just have to DisneyBound / casual cosplay.

I had done a Hoth Leia DisneyBound before — in fact, it was actually my first Star Wars ‘bound back in January of 2017 for the #sothisislove challenge — so that initially came to mind. I had my white track jacket from my honeymoon, my white snow pants (if they still fit), and all I would need would be a white vest. Well, as it turns out, the white vest was the same situation as the t-shirt – hard to find one I liked, and impossible to find one that would arrive on time. It was at that point that I had another idea – I would make my vest. I ordered a pack of white shirts at Walmart for store pick-up and was ready to go! Unfortunately, my order was cancelled by the store, so I was back at square one.

After a lot of thinking, that night I asked my husband if he had any old undershirts that were maybe stained or ripped that I could use for a project. He said he did – not that they were ruined, but a particular brand was too short on him so I could use those shirts. It wasn’t like he was dressing up any time soon anyway so he wasn’t wearing them either. I was excited!! I could still complete the project and I wouldn’t even have to spend money!

Late Wednesday night, after Elizabeth went to sleep, I pulled four white undershirts from my husband’s drawer and brought them upstairs to my sewing table. I cut the sleeves and collar off of two of them (together so that they would line up) and then started pinning. Since my husband told me the shirts were on the shorter side and I wanted my vest to be a bit longer, I had already decided I was going to add a bit of length to the bottom. I also decided that I needed to have pockets because, why make anything without pockets? Disclaimer: I had never made clothing before and I also am not a big pattern person. I pretty much free handed this with a few measurements here or there. If you are reading this and want to make your own vest, you may want to take more measurements than I did and think things through a bit. For instance, when I cut the collar out, I forgot to separate the back from the front so the back dips down and I didn’t love it. I may go back sometime and add a collar to this though, so it may not matter in the long run. Depends on if I ever get the inspiration.

So night one I really just wanted to get the shape together. After pinning everything, I brought out my sewing machine and sewed the seams for the initial vest, leaving the bottom open. Note to clothing sewing newbies: Do Not Sew the sleeves! I thought I was so good sewing around the sleeves and all – until I tried to turn it back inside out!

The beginning of night two was spent watching Elmo’s World with my daughter and using a seam ripper to take out all the seams around the sleeves…whoops! The good thing that came from that was that I now had a good spot to fold so I could sew the seams in from the outside. After bedtime, I headed up to the attic again to work on the vest. I first sewed the arm seams (from the outside this time) and then started stuffing the top with some cotton stuffing I already had from when I made eyes for Dom’s Oscar the Grouch sweatshirt. Then I sewed a seam across the chest where the sort of quilted part would be below it. After I finished that, I decided that I wanted a little context for my vest. Since (as stated above) I had never seen Star Wars, I had been googling pictures for Leia’s Hoth vest and the image quality was just poor. I wanted to watch the scenes with her wearing it but I knew I needed to start at the beginning if I was going to do this right. So I propped up my phone and watched the first half hour of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. I then watched the second half hour on my lunch break the next day and was completely hooked.

Night three was the difficult part. I had to sew all of the diagonal lines to give the vest a quilted feel. I had measured out and marked the vest the night before, thankfully, so I had a 2 1/2″ square grid to work with. I chose a spot, and started sewing. I went down one diagonal and up another and just kept adding the stuffing as I went to make it as even as possible. By the end of night three, I had completed the first half of my vest! Feeling successful, I watched the end of A New Hope and was both hooked on the story line and in love with Han Solo. For real, he is so funny and cute and stubborn and sentimental. I really love Leia, too, and Chewie, and R2D2. Luke is okay, I guess. And C3PO bugs the heck out of me. But I hear he gets better.

Anyway, morning four started with the first hour of The Empire Strikes Back and oh my gosh it’s awesome! I took note of the times for decent shots of Leia’s vest so that I could come back to them while sewing. I loved the Leia / Han back and forth and they are the cutest – but I’ve always been about the romance so don’t mind me over here in love while there’s a war and stuff going on…

Nap time on day four had me on the bottom half of the vest. I measured out just like I did the top. I used just one shirt for this part and folded it up so that the bottom didn’t need to be sewn, only the two sides. I drew out the grid / connect the dots for the diagonal quilted sections and then went for it. I then measured for pockets, cut out the pocket flap, and did a ton of pinning. I knew that sewing the top to the bottom would be the hardest part to get right, but the easiest to sew since it was only a straight line. This meant the pins had to be perfect and I had to line up the stitch just right. I made the pockets so that they were flush to the front edge and the bottom and came up higher than the bottom section of the vest. I made the pocket flaps to be longer as well so they stuck out enough to be sewn into the seam as well. I also sewed down the seam of the pocket in order to avoid accidentally sewing the pocket shut. Once I had like a million pins in place, I sewed the entire seam across at once and was ridiculously happy that my plan worked! After it was all together, I sewed a seam all the way around the outside for a more finished look.

During nap time on day five, I still needed to do some hand sewing and finish The Empire Strikes Back. It was SO good. Like, all the quotable quotes from the series were in this part and it was just so awesome! Han getting shipped away was, obviously, not cool, but I’ve not avoided spoilers for the last 32 years of my life so I knew they’d be reunited. I watched as I hand sewed, so what might have been a quick sewing project took a little longer because of this. The last seam of the pockets needed to be done by hand so that the seam wouldn’t be seen from the inside, and then I had to figure out the badge. Note: This hand sewing isn’t necessary if you decide to make the vest in panels or sew a seam down the side. I regret not making the vest in panels. I should have made the back and the two sides separately and then sewn them all together afterwards. It would have made the pockets less of a headache and I would have had the side seams I initially was going to add but then didn’t. I’m happy with the way it came, but this also would have given it a more fitted look and feel that I didn’t get with mine. Making the badge was actually really fun for me. I grabbed a pizza box from dinner the night before and my hot glue gun and cut out the shapes I wanted. I then did other details with the glue. Once dry, I took out my acrylic paints and mixed to get the colors exactly the way I wanted them as similar to the original as possible. I painted the cardboard and glue and then allowed that to dry, trying to come up with an answer to “how do I attach this so that it sits right and is removable so I can wash the vest?”

That answer came when my husband returned from the food store and asked me to fix his mask (I had used old hair ties and one of his had broken). I ran upstairs, fixed both his mask and another that had broken, and made another mask for myself to wear for Star Wars Day. I used more of the undershirt and used fabric paint to draw/paint the logo of the Rebellion on one side. As for my badge, I had decided to make sort of a pocket in the vest to fit my badge into. I cut an “x” into the vest where it would go and folded the fabric under to make clean edges. To give this section some structure, I cut up the old hair tie that had broken in my husband’s mask (it was a thick one) and sewed that in to keep the shape as well as make sure the corners didn’t come apart. I didn’t like that the stuffing was sort of just out there, so I then sewed another piece of fabric behind the opening, leaving enough hanging over to hold the badge. It worked perfectly BUT it would have worked better if I had thought of this before sewing anything to begin with. If I were to do it over, I would have sewn the pocket in before ever turning the vest right-side out and stuffing it which means, I recommend making the badge first. For me, for this project, I left it to the end because if I didn’t finish on time I wasn’t worried about all the details, but if you have the time and can make it first, do so. Also, I would have coated the badge with mod podge but I could not find mine. I figured it was fine for a day and when I find my mod podge I will coat it then.

I was so happy with the finished project that I had to put it on and show Dom! I also did my hair so that I didn’t have to do it in the morning before work.

I tried on my white snow pants, but they were a little too snug so I ended up wearing my white maternity pants from back before I had Elizabeth. Then they ripped at work and I put on shorts but that’s another story altogether! Luckily, my white track jacket looked perfect with it so the look just worked. I received lots of positive feedback on it and am so proud of it!

On the night of the 4th I watched Return of the Jedi and last night I bit the bullet and watched Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. Return of the Jedi was perfect and I absolutely loved it. I was super nervous for Episode 1, because I thought I had watched it when it first came out and hated it, but it turns out I hadn’t watched it, or it wasn’t at all what I remembered so I’m completely wrong about seeing it and am now really confused as to what I actually saw that was long, boring, and turned me off to the Star Wars franchise. I’ll find out tonight if it was Episode 2. But Episode 1 wasn’t terrible. After the original trilogy, I definitely was craving finding out more about Anakin so this was interesting to me. Again, I know a bit from just seeing it in media, etc, but I enjoyed the backstory and I’m ready to find out more.

To wrap it up, I love my vest so much and it is even more special to me because I made it myself, designed it myself, and know I can make any changes or adjustments I may want for the future. It’s also nice and cozy because of the cotton of the shirts and the stuffing making it puffy. I almost want to wear it every day! If you plan on taking on this project, May the Force be with you! It’s hard work and fun and message me if you need any advice.

May the Force be with you, always, Juli / Leia

PS I made my husband have a mini photo shoot with me as Han and Leia on Monday night. 😉