The Everyday Geeky Girl: Bespin Escape Leia

I needed to have this costume done during a time when I just didn't have a ton of time to do a big build, and honestly, the jumpsuit intimidated me! So I searched the web and came across this seller on Ebay that actually makes the base jumpsuit that needed few alterations to be correct! When I ordered, I made sure to measure wearing VERY loose fleece PJ pants for the inseams. I also requested to have this made in cotton with thin batting (Don't tell them low loft, the words don't translate well to Chinese for them for some reason). So here is step by step what I did to alter this jumpsuit for Rebel Legion.

Happy me when the jumpsuit arrived!!!

Supplies:

A water soluble marker
Medium sized embroidery hoop

Two sets of pants hook and eyes

Three sets of white hook and eyes
White thread
Needle

Scissors

Seam ripper

The first thing you will need to do is move the lower arm patches over to line up with the top arm patches. Seam tip them off carefully, and then move them over and hand stitch them back on, using the previous holes from the stitches as a guide.

Mark out your zig zag patterns on all the pads and princess seams (front and back) of the jumpsuit.

Using your embroidery hoop just use a simple back stitch by hand with your thread doubled and hand quilt your pads.

OPTIONAL SUGGESTION:
You can also remove all the pads and do this through your sewing machine if you a have a quilting foot. Then hand stitch the pads back on. And then run the princess seam quilting through the machine as well.

Use the marker and mark out four rows of lines at the middle of the sleeves. Back stitch all around the rows.

Once you have all your quilting done, you will need to fix your placket. It needs to be flat at the top and bottom and and about one third to one half as wide. Seam rip the outside of the placket. Trim. Fold your raw edges back in. When you fold the top in, make it as straight as possible, and not angled. Do the same for the bottom of the placket. Top stitch with your machine.

For the yoke in the back, it is not straight, but a slightly inverted V shape. Pin tuck with your machine, then blind stitch that down by hand. I used pins to help me with the placement of my pin tuck.

For your belt, hop into the jumpsuit. Measure your waist with the belt fairly tightly. Mark the end of the belt with the buckle with your marker. Take off the belt and mark about three inches or so, enough so that you can let out the belt if needed. Trim. Fold the raw edges about 1/4th inch away from where you marked your waist. This will allow for overlap with the hook and eyes. Attach the pant hook and eyes.

Note: This was taken before I fixed the placket

OPTIONAL
I pulled my collar down about a fourth of an inch, but you may not need to.

Now add your white hook and eye sets to your collar. Make sure you tack them down well, or you will have bad gapping at the neck.

Below are close ups of all my pads and embroidery.