Padme Travel Headdress

Hi Everyone!

My favorite Star Wars character ever is Padme Amidala. 
She is so cool.
...And I love her outfits...
As I often tell people; when I watch a movie, half of the time I pay attention to what is going on and the other half I focus on the costumes.  I guess that explains why I can watch Star Wars over and over and over again and it never gets old.   



Here is Padme in her Travel Costume from
Star Wars: Episode 2, Attack of the Clones.

I LOVE this costume!  It is so pretty.  And the Headdress is awesome!
I decided to try making a replica, and I love how it turned out!

Front of the headdress

A close-up of the side

Back of the headdress


I made the base using my usual method:  A plastic bag and duct tape.  I put a plastic bag over my styrofoam head and duct taped over it until it was fairly solid.  Next I cut out the back and front into the correct shape.  The large fan-like part is craft foam.  Have I mentioned how much I love that stuff?!  I also used craft foam on the sides, as you can see in picture 2.  The only part that was not so enjoyable was when I had to paper mache over everything.  That can be SO time consuming!
The raised design was done with hot glue.  And yes, that WAS extremely difficult.  You have absolutely no idea how many times I burned my fingertips! ;)

The paint I used is Folk Art Gold Enamel paint.  I love the way it looks!  And I tried really hard to weather the headdress, so that it would be darker like the original, but it didn't work out very well.  I am going to have to get some new shoe polish. 

This was SO much fun to make! 

I would love it if you leave a comment letting me know what you think!

Have a fabulous week!


 

Arwen Chase Costume: Bodice

Hey Everyone!

I hope you are all having a great Friday! :) 
Today I'm going to take a look at the bodice on the Arwen Chase dress.
If you want a really in depth look at this costume, you can see this page at Alley Cat Scratch, which is personally one of my favorite websites ever!   

As mentioned before, the dress/overcoat is made of a dove grey suede. 

The bodice is princess seamed, and the princess seams have the baseball stitch done over them.  (Yeah, I know, "baseball stitch" does not sound nearly as pretty as "princess seam", but the stitch DOES look lovely!)  It you aren't aware of what princess seams are or how to make them, you may want to check out this great tutorial from The Blog for Better Sewing. 

Pic found here.

You can see the baseball stitch on the princess seam in the lower left hand corner of the above picture.  If you don't know how to do a baseball stitch yet, Star Dust Shoes has a GREAT picture tutorial here.  I highly recommend using this tutorial is you would like to learn the stitch.    

As you can also see in this picture, the collar has some lovely lace sewn onto it.  I really love how it adds some texture to the costume!  If you are looking to re-create this costume I will again redirect you to Alley Cat Scratch!  The collar has proved to be a challenge for almost everyone who has made this costume.  Alley Cat Scratch has a great pages on making the collar, here, here and here. 

From the pictures I've seen, it looks like the thread used for the baseball stitch may be something like embroidery floss and it appears to be white. 

Moving on the the front lacing!

Pic found here. 

Ok, the front lacing is not actually doing any shaping.  It is just there for decoration, and I have to say, it looks amazing!  The sash looks like a purple-ish/grey/blue and it made from light silk.  I extends pretty far down, about 2/3 of the way down the skirt part of the dress.  There are 3 little loops on each side that the sash is laced through.  It then laces through the pretty silver "buckle" on the front.  

Phew!  This has been a LOT to think about! :)  I'll save the sleeves and buckle for my next post, because they have quite a few things to make note of. 

Have a wonderful day!