Simplicity 4450

[Crowen Grail]

I was just wondering what everyone's opinion on this pattern is? I recently bought it (haven't really looked at it yet, though).

[Ldi-Ovef Te_Azi]

it looks pretty good to me, i would have to see the pattern up close, or the finished result. looks alright though.

[Primrodo]

Worst part really is the tabards, the pattern otherwise is a great base.

[The Lost Skywalker]

I actually havethe pattern, it's how I built my taberds. The material they used for the picture is horribly wrong, since they used shiny vinyl, but the deisgn itself does help out a lot.

[Crowen Grail]

Yeah, the Obi-Wan pattern they provide looks pretty solid. And I have a natural linen fabric in mind, which should resolve the gaudiness. Has anyone tested the cloak pattern that came with the rest of it? I'm curious as to the results. I know Tanthos used the pattern in parts of his costume and the results were splendid (if the picture is to be believed ).
On a related note, does anybody have experience with synthetic leather? I'd prefer not to use natural leather, if I can, and was wondering how it held up in pouch-making, et cetera. Thanks!

[Nova Darklighter]

As Primrodo said, the worst part is the tabbards. They use the fabric they do, to avoid trouble with LFM over licensing. Of the commercially available patterns out at the moment, I think this is the closest, and easiest to modify, at least from the direction sheets, I have the kids version, that I used for size blocks for a very tight deadline, worked ok for the tunic, I didn't use the tabbards or obi tho' As for the robe, I didn't really look at it, but I'll dig it out and see what I think. Will post more on this soon.

[obiwanron]

I used the pattern for everything but the pants.
All of the pieces came out looking great.
I had to add about 8 inches to the tabbards. At 6'4" they would have been a little short.
When I made my first set of tabbards I thought they needed to be wider. My height comes into play again. So I widened the pattern when I made the second set.

[Primrodo]

See the problem with the tabards is their entire shape, especially on the shoulders, its more akin to traditional samurai robes, the Jedi tabards should more or less be rectangles, with a seam at the waist to simulate a curve.

No wavy thing happening.

[Crowen Grail]

That's awesome news! I'm about 6'1" and broad shouldered Obiwanron, so would you recommend me to lengthen the tabbards as you did?

[hathorsg1x]

I bought this pattern and used it for mine. I like it but my grandmother and I were at war with it mainly on the tunic. It called for us to cut 8 strips for the neck band on it, but we only used 2 or 4.
Not entirely sure, but we looked at how it would turn out with the bigger number cut out and the neck band would have been huge. Turned out perfectly fine without it all.
Also when you go to add the shoulder pleates in for the tunic it doesn't explain in clear detail where to put them, but that was another thing we didn't like. If simplicty makes this pattern again they need to fix a few things on it.
The cloak pattern is easy(and claok also has shoulder pleates), as were the taberds and fabric belt. The under tunic 'd-i-c-k-i-e' as it's called was easy as well.
As for pants I used a womens Japanese sleep pants pattern, mens pants you can always buy the pattern for mens/womens doctor scrub pants. That works just as good or going and buying pants to match your outfit.

Here are some pictures of how mines turned out. It's 95% complete my taberds and the fabric belt just need to be hand sewn on and it's all done.

s27.photobucket.com/albums/c196/hathor_sg1x/Jedi%20Costume%202006/

indianabones said:

I was just wondering what everyone's opinion on this pattern is? I recently bought it (haven't really looked at it yet, though).

[Olos Nay]

I need to agree with you hathorsg1x, their explanations on how to do some of the pattern are confusing, and you end up doing some things on your own. But it does pretty good result none the less... I STRONGLY recommend not making them tabbards (shoulder armors??) and prefer other ways of making the robe. Since most people get ready-made pants, this pattern is mainly for the tunic, which is the most flawed part of it.

If you can make elsewise, don't be shy to do so. 4450 is OK, but nothing like it seams to promise to be.

Nevertheless, here's how my tunic managed to look like:


For the dickies I'll simply alter a beige t-shirt.

[obiwanron]

indianabones said:

That's awesome news! I'm about 6'1" and broad shouldered Obiwanron, so would you recommend me to lengthen the tabbards as you did?

All I did was hold the tabbard part of the pattern over my shoulders while my wife centered the widest part on the top of my shoulder.
Then she flattened the pattern against my body so we could see exactly how long/short the tabbards would be.
We then determined the necessary length and added it to the end of the front and added 2 more inches. We added more than necessary so we could cut the material exactly the length we needed.
Lengthening the pattern is easy. Just cut out some newspaper the same width as the pattern and make it as long as you want. Then pin it to the pattern and your ready to go.

Regarding the tunic and the rest of the costume I made my first one using a pattern from the costume section of the Simplicity catalog and made the robe by modifying a pattern for a wizards robe.

[hathorsg1x]

I like how yours turned out, we spent two weeks messing with my tunic, between everyone getting sick and such it was funny.

I was dragging down posters, my qui-gon jinn doll, dvd's, the laptop etc...You name it we had it all laid out on our table studying it over to proceed on what to do next with the dreaded thing.

That and I ended up dragging my kimono down in the end since the tunic pattern pretty much resembled it to a small extent.



Once we had my kimono and the doll and psoters we played aroudn a bit and foudn what we wanted. The kimono neckband is about the same widith of my tunic, you can't really see it in the picture, but that was the big helper in the end for this monster.

yanlauzon said:

I need to agree with you hathorsg1x, their explanations on how to do some of the pattern are confusing, and you end up doing some things on your own. But it does pretty good result none the less... I STRONGLY recommend not making them tabbards (shoulder armors??) and prefer other ways of making the robe. Since most people get ready-made pants, this pattern is mainly for the tunic, which is the most flawed part of it.

For the thingyies I'll simply alter a beige t-shirt.

[JediKai]

I still make my tunics out of a altered kimono pattern, for that same reason.

[Olos Nay]

hathorsg1x said:

I like how yours turned out, we spent two weeks messing with my tunic

Thanks for the kind words... but believe me, there was lots of time and even swearing involved in making mine... at some point I wanted to switch to another pattern.