Sunday, June 12, 2016

Last Minute Star Wars Costumes

I am one of the lesser Star War fans in my cohort but I love coming up with costumes.  Last fall not only were we excited for Episode VII but my friends had a Life Day Party and requested everyone dress in Star Wars costumes.


Lucky's costume was easy because he had many choices.  He had many different Star Wars PJ's and he had an R2D2 hoodie.  Keith and I needed to get a little more creative as we didn't have anything that would work with zero effort.  

Darth Vader's Cape

Keith already had a "Who's your daddy?" tshirt and Darth Vader mask, so we just needed a cape. (In the picture above he is also featuring a light saber pen!) I took a cheap plastic table cloth (54"x108") left over from Lucky's Birthday Party and chopped off the bottom so the length would just hit the floor.  On my sewing machine, I made the stitch length as long as possible and raised the tension as high as possible to ruffle the cape.


Unfortunately that did not ruffle the top as much as I'd hoped.  I lowered the tension and stitch length to normal levels, and created a tie for the top of the cape.  I folded a 4" wide piece into thirds and stitched down the middle.  It isn't neat, it isn't perfect. but it is a bit stronger.


Finally, I gathered the cape by hand pinning it in place with this tie folded in half over the cape.  I didn't have the tie centered well but this was a FAST FAST last minute costume.


Voila!  The cape is done.


Cue the Imperial March!



A Death Star Maternity Shirt

When I was figuring out my own costume, I wanted to take advantage of my big baby bump.  Star Wars has a pregnant character, Padme, but she dies in childbirth!  That wouldn't be a fun way to dress up!  I had an old Maternity shirt from when I was pregnant with Lucky and decided to create a death star on the belly.  This would work both for this party and to wear to the movie!

That's no moon!
First I sketched out a rough circle around where I wanted the death star to end up.


With fabric paint I started drawing outlines of the shapes I found in some death star cartoons.  


Finally I filled in the shapes with a light zig zag of the silver fabric paint.   I needed this to be dry by the next night so I didn't want to goop on the paint too high.  Isn't she beautiful?  


I wish that I had drawn the belly a little lower on the shirt... but overall I thought it was a great attempt!  Plus it was dry just in time for the party.  (I'm super glad no one made jokes about making my belly explode!)


Unfortunately our Darth Vader mask is currently missing.  I think Lucky would really like playing with it now, too.  Where oh where could it be?