Ever so slowly, I am working my way toward populating this blog with posts again. A lot of the sewing I've done this year has been small projects, to accommodate my limited health. However I am gradually increasing into more interesting projects, so there should be exciting new stuff to watch for in the coming months.
Today, I am going to talk about how I made Jedi robes for my little nephew in just two hours! Honestly, I could have done them in an hour if I wasn't taking photos and planning this blog post at the same time! But I did, because I just had to share this super easy project with you all!
(I made Jedi Robes because my family is super into Star Wars, but you could also use this pattern to make basic wizard robes.)
This tutorial is aimed towards making robes for a child, but you could definitely apply the method for a teen or adult as well, you'd just need bigger curtains (or a sheet or bedspread). You could also just start with plain fabric, but then you would need to add hems and it would take longer. The beauty of this layout is NO HEMMING! Yay!
Jedi robes are not very fitted, and this project is made to be unlined, but not unravel, so this is an ideal project for someone with basic sewing skills.
In Part 1, I will show you how to select which curtains to use, and how to cut them out.
These robes are unlined, so I recommend picking out a curtain with a bit of weight and body to it. You can pick any material you want. I used polyester because it is what I had on hand, but a rough, natural looking weave would be more accurate to the costumes worn in the movies.
Bonus tip - most thrift stores have sale days, or have categories or tag colors on sale on different days of the week. Call ahead and find out when you're most likely to find curtains on sale, in order to get the best possible deal!
To get the dimensions of your curtain, take your model's floor-to-shoulder height + arm length. This is how long your curtain needs to be. The width is more flexible - it should be 2-4 times the circumference of your model's chest (depending on how flowing you want the robes to be). If you are working with very narrow curtains, you can get two and sew them together down the long end, to create a center back seam. The hemmed edges will create a nice finished seam on the interior.
The first step is to fold the curtains in half, lengthwise, right sides together. THEN, take each edge and fold it back over, so that you have four layers, with the front, finished edges lining up with the center seam, as shown above.
