ST:Wrath of Khan - Field Jacket - with photos of other cool people in them

Here's the progress thus far:

I started by sketching up some full size patterns.



I mocked-up various parts of the costume to validate (and help improve) my patterns.



I decided on a color and dyed my material. I used procion fiber reactive dyes, a mix of 'fire red' and 'chocolate brown' (Used a bit more of the brown than red) I used the washing machine method, and it took nearly a day. Not to mention a lot of salt! (And soda ash, and detergent...) I now understand why colored fabric can be twice as expensive as undyed- It's probably worth it. (If you can find the color you need...)





Here's a comparison, (note that the color is a bit washed out in the camera flash...) on the far right is some leftover material I used for my mock-up, that didn't look too bad, then my first dye test (a bit too red I thought) and left and rolled is the color I settled on.



I chose to start the serious work with the sleeves. This was because the sleeves have most of the complex features of the jacket, and if I totally blow it, I haven't used that much material up... First came the elbow pads:



Then I cut the interfacing and ironed it onto the outer material. I've decided I rather like fusible interfacing.



For the giant piping I used 9.5mm cording. And I learned that to get it to assemble right, you must cut the piping material on the bias. (Before this project, I didn't even know what that meant...)





I didn't have any luck in my search for proper 'solar system' patches for the shoulder. So I scratch made a couple- mostly with a tight zig-zag stitch, but some paint and sharpie was used as well.





So here's what the (flattened out) left sleeve looks like: (You can see the mock-up sleeve below it.)



I still need to add the big department color strap with it's piping, squeaks and pips, but that will be attached later. Here's the left sleeve together with the jacket's lining- you can see the collar in progress as well.



That's it so far. I figure I'm around 30% done. I still have to convince myself I can come up with a good way to attach the external pockets....

That's for looking!

Well, here's an update-

Did I mention that this project is not all that easy? At least at my skill level...

Here's the back going together:


And with the front parts put together hanging with the lining:


This giant double piping for the shoulders...


Is fine until you try to attach it...
Then it became, well, not so fun. I broke 5 needles in under ten minutes trying to attach a sleeve... I knew that was going to be the hard part, but I had to invent new swear words...

Actually what I had to do was switch to the heavy duty manual machine- much harder to use for this sort of thing and a lot slower, but it can stitch the thick stuff without breaking a needle every half an inch...


So if I look angry in this last shot, mostly it's because I just never seem to be able to smile in self portraits, but it's also that I was still a bit frustrated when I took the picture.


So, now if I can manage not to totally frak up the zipper, then I should be in the home stretch.

Remaining steps- hem the bottom edge, make and attach the front box pockets, phaser holster and sample pocket, attach the lining and zipper- and a number of smaller support steps in there...

Going slow...

Jon8712 said:

---

If your 2nd jacket needs a home, LMK!
'Jon'8712'

You're an optimist, aren't you, Jon?

The second jacket is going to be seriously tiny, as it's being made to fit my GF. Actually that's been one of the more interesting challenges with preparing for this project.
At first I was worried since I had no real measurements on any part of these jackets- the closest I was able to get to hard dimensions was using the band-aid box to scale different parts on screen caps. (And we all know how accurate that tends to be-) But I quickly found that even if I made a perfect 1 to 1 replica of Saavik's jacket, I'd fail as a costumer since a jacket made for Kirstie Alley, 5'7 would look ridiculous on my less than 5'7 GF. The real goal had to be making two jackets that look good next to each other, even though the sizes are so different. So after estimating the size of the features (especially the front box pockets, but also the 'diamond' on the back, the straps, etc.) I then tried to adjust the sizes so they wouldn't look too big on her jacket, while not looking too small on mine... I'll have to wait and see if I succeed on that or not... At least it looks like they're going to fit us!