Before you say it’s too early to start thinking about Halloween, I’ll say three months is barely enough time to create a replica of a Jedi uniform circa the Clone Wars. Seeing as I collect people as nerdy as myself as friends, I will be helping out with what is probably my ninth or tenth Jedi costume.

The first two I made were way back in 1999, when some brothers I went to school with wanted to go as Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jinn. They tried to persuade me to work up an Amidala costume, to which I retorted that any planet dumb enough to elect a fourteen year old girl as its ruler deserved to be invaded by robots. They were low budget costumes, but I made some lucky finds in the clearance section of the fabric store and they ended up looking a lot more lifelike as Jedis than Ewan Mcgregor and Liam Neeson ever did. (I suspect that this had less to do with my costumes and more to do with the fact that my friends had personalities.)

Many billowing polyester robes later, I’m going for this:

This will be my first non-traditional Jedi costume. In some ways it will be much easier (I don’t need to sew five layers of clothing) and much harder (how the heck am I going to make armor plating?) My friend Shawn is committed to a kickass costume, so today we planned it out and bought our first pieces. I found some cotton/poly chenille upholstery fabric for a tabard that looks like raw wool but is lighter in weight than it looks and won’t cling to other fibers. We dropped by American Apparel and bought a small long sleeved black t-shirt, and I was glad that I didn’t have to talk Shawn into accepting spandex leggings for the bottom layer. He understood, as so few before him have, that sweatpants were not an option. In the suiting section we found dark brown polyester that will make a lightweight robe that will still billow nicely and hold its shape.

To create the armor, Shawn is looking into what he could do with actual sheet metal, although I’m more inclined to buy second hand football, soccer and hockey gear, cannibalize it, and paint it. I lean heavily toward plastic parts as they don’t rip fabric, don’t make you tired, and don’t set off metal detectors at the airport, causing security to ask why there is chain mail and a morning star in your luggage. (Don’t ask.) We want the finished costume to have a nice lived-in feel, so I’ll be distressing the fabric and the armor with stains, maybe a repaired tear here or there, and blaster marks on the armor.

Tonight during two re-runs of Doctor Who I figured out the pattern and cut out the tabard. When I’ve got the whole thing figured out I’ll post the pattern here, just in case anybody else is crazy enough to try to become a Jedi in three months or less.