Would a tutorial w/pics actually help?-Added vest tutorial

That's my question. I'm in the process of sewing a new jumpsuit for myself right now, but the modifications to it are SO simple. Would it actually help if I took pictures of the mods and outlined how to do them on our website? The only things you have to do are add stitching details, it's REALLY easy. (I can also do one for the vest, but I don't have to allow for holes for a harness, so I'm not putting those in.)

One problem with my tutorial is that the pattern I use is no longer made my Simplicity. Those of you who have the Green Pepper pattern, is it made with a separate bottom and top piece that you put together? The Simplicity one is, and that's what makes it so easy.

Anyway, I'm already mostly done with my new jumpsuit, so it will be a pain in the neck for me to make another for a tutorial, but if there's enough demabd, I will. If everybody's too afraid to try to make their own, then I don't want to go to all that extra work for nothing.

I think any help/tutorial would help us or our mothers/wives who we get to make the fabric part of the costumes. There will always be a demand for it. My mother is working on mine and she had a bit of trouble because she preferred patterns etc. I bought a vest/shirt like pattern which helped her out a lot though.

A tutorial would be great! Also where can you get the patterns since Simpicity doesnt make them any more?

Flan

A tutorial would be fab!
ST

Yes, tutorial please!

Yes, Please!!!!!!!!!!!

Ah, for your mothers and wives...yes, I can see where that would be helpful, since pretty much none of them would see which details to get. I'll work on a tutorial.

The only jumpsuit pattern I know of now is one by Green Pepper, or something like that, and I've never used it. The pattern I have is not available any more. I guess you could write to Simplicity and hope they re-issue the pattern.

Again, YES PLEASE!!!!

Thanks,
Ed

Oh yeah!! Tutorial please!!


~Bobby

YES TUTORIAL PLEASE

Okay, this tutorial will be up on our website soon, along with the pics. This is just for the vest, not jumpsuit yet. LMK what you think, and if you're totally lost on anything.


Boba Fett Vest Tutorial V1.0
By Lisa Yankey



Materials:
A. Simplicity pattern #9637. Yes, I know it’s a cheerleader pattern. It goes up to a size 18, or about a 40 inch chest, so make sure you get the right pattern size packet, guys. Buy twice as much fabric as it says on the back for the sleeveless v-neck pattern, or about 3 yards. You’ll need a gray for ROTJ or Preproduction (I use satin inside out), or white for ESB.
B. Get either an invisible zipper (hard), or 2 feet if Velcro.
C. Get 2 yards of a thin-medium interfacing, so you’ll be sure to have enough.
D. You should also pick up a washable fabric pattern marker while you’re there.
E. Thread to match your fabric.
F. Piping. It comes in little packets. You can get white, but gray is less common. If you can’t find your color, you’ll have to carefully sew over it in your fabric.
G. Time – It took me about a day, but I fooled around a whole lot during that time. If you work hard and don’t mess up a lot, you should be able to get it done in 2-3 hours at most.

* Special note about this pattern. It’s made for women. (Duh). It’s a good idea to measure your shoulders if you’re a guy, and make sure that the shoulders in the pattern will be large enough for you. The shoulder seam should be RIGHT ON your shoulder, not drooping down at all. If you see that the pattern is only one inch bigger than your shoulders, extend it by a ½ inch so that you have a little room. If it’s the same size as your shoulders, extend it by 1 ½ inches. The pattern should be about that much larger than your shoulders.

Procedure:
1. Cut out all the pattern pieces you’ll need from the pattern paper…Cut out the ROUND neck top back, round neck top front, and long sleeve. No, there’s no NECK. Boba’s vest doesn’t have an attached neck, so don’t put one on.
2. You will need to cut DOUBLE the fabric pieces that the pattern says. I don’t put interfacing in the back of the vest, but I still use double the material thickness. Otherwise, the difference is too much between front and back.
3. Lay out the pattern for the front. Fold up the bottom, like in the first picture, so that it’s the right length. It should be about four inches or so above your waist, but look at a pic of Fett to be sure. Fold it and hold it up to your body in front a mirror. Remember to add about an inch for seams, because odds are you’ll guess and make the vest too short.
4. Now to measure for the sleeve. You can see in picture two how much of the sleeve I used. The line didn’t come out in the picture, so I photoshopped another rough one in. It is really just a little cap, not even a sleeve. Mine are a little over 5 inches long when I cut them out. (Stop thinking that, I can read your mind!) Anyway, yours will be about the same length. Fett’s are really very short.
5. Like in picture 3, you can check your sleeve against the front piece. The sleeve will NOT go all the way to the bottom of the armhole. It’s shorter than that.
6. Like in picture 4, make you sure shorten the back to the same length as you shortened the front.
7. Cut out all the pieces, and interfacing for the sleeves and front piece.
8. Sewing in interfacing can be weird if you’ve never done it before, so pay close attention to the instructions.
9. First let’s start with the back pieces. Trust me on these; the way I sew this vest will keep you from having to do annoying finish work. YOU ARE NOT SEWING ANY PIECES TO EACH OTHER TO FORM ANYTHING RESEMBLING A VEST YET. WE ARE DEALING WITH INDIVIDUAL PIECES BY THEMSELES RIGHT NOW. I’LL LET YOU KNOW WHEN WE MOVE ON. Got it? Ok, take the two pieces that you cut out for the left side of the back. With right sides together, sew them together at the BOTTOM, INSIDE (the part that will get the Velcro), AND NECK. Don’t sew the shoulders or the outsides. Do the same thing with the right side. Now turn those right side out. The neck bottom, and inside edge should look like they have a finished edge to them.
10. Take the left sleeve, put right sides together, and put interfacing on the side. It doesn’t matter what side. Pin it just like that. Trim the interfacing about a quarter inch. Sew it only across the BOTTOM, not the part that’s going to get sewn onto the vest later. See picture 6. Now take just one layer of the vest fabric and pull it over the interfacing. Look, you formed a finished edge! Doesn’t the interfacing look cute all tucked inside? No, I didn’t think so either.
11. Do the same with the right sleeve.
12. Take the front piece, put right sides together, and put the interfacing on one side. Pin them just like that. Sew them together only at the NECK and BOTTOM. Nowhere else. Now pull one layer of the vest over and sort of inside out so that the interfacing is tucked inside. It’s not cute this time either, no. But see how the neck edge is finished, and the bottom edge is finished? That’s nice, isn’t it? You don’t have to go back and fiddle with those later. And it looks just like Boba’s! See picture 9.
13. Go back to the sleeves. Take your fabric pen and a ruler and mark out the stitch lines, just like in picture 7. Sew right over those lines. You could do it without marking them, but it’s harder. Just mark them. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking, and I’ve seen a lot of people whose vest’s have a crisscross pattern of stitches. See, the thing is, on Fett’s suit, I’ve never seen any evidence of crisscrossing. They’re just lines. Absolutely, positively for sure on Pre-production and ESB, just pretty sure on ROTJ. When you’re done, they’ll look like picture 8.
14. Okay, NOW IT’S TIME TO START PUTTING SOME PIECES TOGETHER. Just so you know. Do a dance of joy, you don’t have that much work left. As long as you don’t mess up and have to rip stuff out.
15. Take the back pieces, with the finished edges out, and the front piece, finished edges out, and sew them together at the shoulders. See pictures 9 and 10.
16. Time to sew in the sleeves. Cut two lengths of piping equal to how long the tops of the sleeves are. Pin these on to the RIGHT side of the fabric on one sleeve hole on the vest. Look at picture 11 for all the pins you need to hold it in place.
17. Now pin the sleeve in, right sides together, starting in what you are positive to be the center of the sleeve. Be careful to pin exactly right on top of the piping, so that you can just sew that 1/8th of an inch on top of the sleeve and know that it will look right. See picture 11 again.
18. Now see picture 12 for how many pins you’re supposed to use. At LEAST. Don’t get lazy with the pins. The secret to good sewing is all in the pins.
19. Now, you’ll need to take the bottom of the sleeve and fold it back a tiny bit, then fold it again to cover the raw edge. This is because Fett’s sleeves are too short to go all the way around his armhole. See picture 13. Fold it back for about two inches down the length of the vest (but only about ¼ inch in). This will give you plenty of room when you’re doing those super-cool Fett poses. You might want to pin the sides closed and do a test to make sure the armholes are big enough at this point. If not, fold them down a little more. Sew them.
20. Sew the sides closed.
21. Sew Velcro, see picture 14.
22. See picture 15 for a final product. You will probably look more manly in your vest than I look in mine. That is because you are a man. Try yours on and wear it around, trying to bring it back into fashion. Wonder why other people just don’t understand your Star Wars obsession.
23. If you use a jet pack harness, you’ll need to figure out where you want the holes to be in your vest, then finish the edges with some kind of edge finisher. When I did it, I just used the finisher setting on the sewing machine. I don’t use a harness any more because my jet pack only weighs a few pounds, so I am not going to be putting in any holes.

It seems pretty straightforward to me. The only thing I might add would be a note to mark which pieces are which.

Step 22 is nice, too. *laugh*

Well, hopefully, they'll have bought the pattern and be following it. *L* I think with the pictures and the pattern pieces, anyone should (hopefully) be able to tell which pieces go where. I don't really know how else to describe the pattern pieces, anyway, other than back, front, and sleeve.

I asked earlier about the Green Pepper pattern. I saw it at the cloth store, and it is not nearly as suitable as the previous Simplicity pattern. I am guessing Simplicity will re-release the pattern in another form, like one just for jumpsuits or something.

The problem with the Green Pepper pattern is the placement of the waist. There are also a lot of extra things on that jumpsuit that will have to be fiddled with.

Another idea for a jumpsuit pattern is to buy a second-hand jumpsuit at the auto store. Some of them have a barrel in the store that has old jumpsuits that they're not using any more. They're $10, which is not too bad for a pattern.

Thanks LisaFett, tutorial is awsome!!!!
ST

It's up on our site now, with the pics!

Thanks for the tutorial. Its all Greek to me but my freind who will be helping me will find it usefull when we break into this.

I went thru LisaFett's tutorial over the weekend and it worked out very well. Sewing machines and I don't get along, so it wasn't without some aggravation ....

However, it's done and the tutorial was VERY easy to follow. The only change I made was not using the piping, but adding another hand stitched seam along the shoulders.

Thanks LisaFett ....

I couldn't tell if there was supposed to be piping or the just stitch line on the different versions, so I just stuck it in there. *L* What's the consensus on that, anyway?

For info LisaFett, here is the way the shoulder/sleeve turned out ... thanks again !!

I know, that's the way that Katarra made them, with just the extra stitch line. On the pre-pro pictures (my costume), the vest looks slightly different from ROTJ. There's more quilting lines down the sleeve on the ROTJ version, for instance. The pre-pro version looks like it's got piping, not just the seam line. On the tutorial, I used some fabric for ESB, but I wasn't sure if the other versions actually had the piping or just the seam lines.

I've seen more than a few scratch jumpsuits and vests that look like they've been copied off Katarra designs, when those do have inaccuracies (that have been discussed before).

I don't have the Fett reference CD, so I'm really not sure about the vest shoulder details for ESB or ROTJ. I don't trust MOM shots, either, not after what I saw when I visited.