Every year my school hosts “Book Character Day.”  On this day, all of the teachers and a lot of the kids come to school dressed as a character on the cover of a book.  We have a big assembly and a costume contest, and all that fun stuff.  In 2008 I decided it was time to finally design a well-made Jedi costume.  Since I also needed to make a book character costume, I decided to focus on Siri Tachi, Obi Wan’s friends from the Jr. Novels.  There was a bit of cover art on one of the books showing her Jedi outfit, so I set to work!  I wore a wig that day so that I would better match Siri’s look, but since then I’ve just used the costume as a generic Jedi.  The nice thing about this costume is that I can mix-and-match it to go with the weather or the different looks that I want for any given event.

 

 

Foe example, I can be human....

 

   

 

 

Or Twi’lek.....

 

 

 

 

 

And, if it’s cold outside, I can add the robe!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Modesto Parade of Lights, 2008

 

 

 

Participating in a Boy Scouts event with friends from Endor Base

Jedi costumes will always hold a special place for me.  My very first Star Wars costume (and Scott’s, also!) was a Jedi costume that was made for Celebration II.  Those first costumes were pretty sad.  I didn’t know how to sew at all, so they were made with the cheapest cotton fabric that I could find, and they were badly sewn by hand.  Most of the accessory pieces were scavenged and mismatched, like the assortment of camera cases that we both wore on our belts. But, we got a wonderful response from other people at the convention... and I was thrilled to discover that I absolutely loved costuming!

 

We didn’t costume again until Celebration III, where we made another set of Jedi outfits.  This time I had a sewing machine and could kinda-sorta use it, though the outfits were still low quality... and when it rained on us that weekend, the brown dye from my new robe soaked through all the layers of my costume!  There was definitely an improvement in our costumes, though, and we made our accessories by hand so they all matched a whole lot better.  We were definitely starting to get the hang of the costuming process.