Princess Leia Costume

After a lifetime of waiting for a Star Wars land to be created my husband was delighted to fulfill his childhood fantasy and visit the Galaxy's Edge at Disneyland. He couldn't just go in street clothes though, he must dress as his favorite character Han Solo and Carolyn had to join him as her favorite Princess Leia.

Carolyn just loves Princess Leia after having seen select clips from the movies (we have not shown her the entire film yet) and being told stories of her from her father. She also loves Chewbacca and R2D2! After finishing adapting a jacket for Ben's costume I was left with one day to whip this up, so I did quite the speed job. And although it's not perfect, I'm happy with how it turned out, and most importantly Carolyn loved her costume.

So how did I make this costume? I started off by reading some other blog posts about how other moms created theirs. Here are my two favorite references:

https://www.carrieelle.com/no-sew-diy-princess-leia-costume-for-kids

https://www.craftinessisnotoptional.com/2011/10/princess-leia-costumebelt-tutorial.html

Based off of these suggestions I used this peasant dress pattern to get an idea for size and shape, but also had Carolyn lay down on the fabric/paper patter to double check my size before I cut the fabric.

https://www.scatteredthoughtsofacraftymom.com/howtomakeapeasantdress/

Here is the shape I cut, with the fold going across the top of the arms/neck hole. I sewed the side seams and arm seams. Then I hemmed the sleeves and bottom of the robe. I also created a drawstring channel around the whole neck that opened inside the front, so the strings would just dangle down.

I wanted to add the hood so I traced one of Ben's jacket hoods (that way it would be extra big).

Then I attached it below the drawstring neckline and just gently pleated in the extra fabric.

Ben helped me make the belt by cutting the shapes out of shiny silver card-stock, I hot-glued them to a silver ribbon and I safety pinned it to her waist to help keep it on for a whole day at Disney.

I created the headband using black felt (it's what I had at home) cut into 3" diameter circles and by braiding long strands of brown yarn. Then I just hot-glued the braids as I wrapped them in a spiral on the brown circles. And hot-glued them to an old brown headband I owned.

We found they had a shop with all toys that looked handmade, so even though we'd gone for Ben and my birthdays we ended up buying her a present, because we just love how special it was to her and she'd been so good and put it back after looking at it without even asking to have it. So here you have it, Leia holding Leia.

I think her absolute favorite part of the day was getting to meet Chewy, everyone thought she'd be scared of him but I believe she saw him as a giant teddy bear!

Lucky girl got to ride the Milennium Falcon ride twice, because we had to do a parent swap so someone could stay with baby Cassie. She delighted in it!!!

Of course we visited the Cantina, although everyone expected them to sell food, along with drinks, but we were wrong and had to look elsewhere to eat lunch...

Cassie was going to be a Yoda, but sadly mommy ran out of time to crochet her a little Yoda hat. But she enjoyed sleeping through the park, it was a thrilling first trip for her! Ha!

Look, I was there too!

To complete the space theme we had to ride the Astro Orbiter!

It was a fabulous day at Disney, a great way to celebrate another year God has given us!

I hope this little tutorial is helpful for other mamas out there making costumes for their little ones!