Princess Leia (Disneybound Version) – Star Wars

Made for: Disney Trip, May 2016

Background: I kinda shied away from the whole “Disneybounding” idea for a long time, because the idea of doing a costume – even a casual one – in the parks sounded exhausting! But I finally caved.

Journal Entries: Read more at my Leia Disneybound tag

Related Costumes: Leia Disneybound 2021, Padme Disneybound

Patterns Used:
Simplicity 1107

Top:

I have this shirt I really like, and I wanted to make something similar to it. The shirt I had had some symbols embossed in the front, so to copy that look, I designed a Star Wars take on it in photoshop – various Star Wars related symbols (rebel bird, etc) with a background of lines of Aurebesh (Leia’s “Help Me Obi-Wan Kenobi” speech). I uploaded it to Spoonflower and bought a fat quarter in their modern jersey – it arrived and the design was a bit too large and getting cut off at the bottom. So I redid it, ordered another fat quarter – and this one was about right. I used the second version as the front, and first version with the larger symbols as the back.

I also got a yard of plain jersey to do the collar/yoke piece. I got the above Simplicity pattern just as a jumping off point – I used the front collar piece from the pattern basically as it came – I think I shortened it a bit – but created an alternate back piece using the back pattern piece as a guidepoint.

Initially, I doubled my fabric over for the upper pieces. The end result looked far too heavy and thick compared to the lower sections of the shirt. I ended up recutting these pieces as one layer and it looked MUCH better!

Shrug:

I love my Mighty Fine Captain America Dolman Shrug, but I didn’t think either of their Star Wars options were right for a Leia based costume. I decided to just make something based off of my shrug. I got a light grey knit fabric at Joann Fabrics – I really like it, because it has stripes of metallic silver running through it. Once I had the basic shape together and hemmed, I cut a large rebel symbol out of some leftover red spandex, and hand-stitched it in place on the back — once I had it stitched in place, I went over it on my machine and removed the hand-stitching.

Accessories:

Well, the white shorts I bought ended up not being as white as my shirt, but at that point I wasn’t going to buy another pair! The shoes I bought, the sunglasses I had. My rebel necklace was from ThePendantPeddler on etsy, and I was extremely pleased with it!

Etc:

I couldn’t decide how to wear this even after I finished everything. I had wanted to wear the shirt tucked in, with a silver belt I had. Unfortunately I’d bought the silver belt to wear with dresses at my waist – not at my hips, so it didn’t fit! I tried all kinda of different ideas with the belt before finally just saying forget the belt – and I wore it as you see here.

History:

It was actually very comfortable! I was worried about wearing the buns for ages in the heat, but I made sure I put them on carefully with no bobbie pins jabbing me in the ears, and they weren’t a problem at all. I look forward to wearing it again on another trip 🙂

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