Luke Skywalker, Jedi

My five-year-old son is fully obsessed with Star Wars. He’s got the Pottery Barn Kids Star Wars bedding, all he wants to do is play Lego Star Wars on the Wii, and he will talk anyone’s ears off with minutiae about the movies. Naturally, he wanted to be Luke Skywalker for Halloween this year. But not just ANY Luke Skywalker, mind you. No, he specifically wanted to be Return of the Jedi-era Luke Skywalker, AFTER he was already a Jedi.

I have never made my kids’ Halloween costumes. Apparel-sewing isn’t really my thing, and it seemed like a lot of work for fickle kids who change their minds a lot. Especially when I can buy something cute from Old Navy for under $20 and call it a day. Unfortunately for me, however, I was quite unable to find a Jedi-era, kid-sized Luke Skywalker costume. My hand was forced.

Thankfully, it’s a pretty simple one. It’s really just a black wrap top, black pants, a belt, and if you are inclined, a hooded cloak. I used the Oliver + S Bedtime Story Pajamas pattern for the main part of the costume. I’ve made it before, and it’s a great, easy, well-written pattern. I was sad when it went out-of-print, but now you can get it as a PDF! My only complaint is that, when you print at home and have to tape together the pattern pieces, it was not exactly foolproof. I realized late that I put some of the pieces together too closely, leading to a slimmer fit than would normally be the case. It still fit my son well enough, and actually I think it was a better look for the costume. But next time, I think, I will take advantage of the very last part of the PDF, which is formatted to print on 36″ wide paper at office supply stores. I suspect it’ll be worth it to avoid taping all of that together again.

Once the pajamas were done, I made a 3″ wide belt – just a layer of batting between two layers of fabric, with a bit of top-stitching and some Velcro to connect the ends.

I was going to leave it at that. This was, after all, being sewn Friday night and Saturday morning for a Saturday-afternoon school Halloween party (oops). But then, it was only 10:30am and both kids kept talking about how it really needed a cape… And I had slightly over-ordered the fabric, so I had about a yard left… So I (loosely) used this tutorial and put together a hooded cloak for the full Luke-walks-in-to-see-Jabba look.

Once we picked up a lightsaber at Target (my craftiness has its limits, people), I have to say it is a damn fine Jedi Luke Skywalker costume.

Best of all, my son put each piece on as soon as it was complete, had no interest in taking it off for the rest of the day, and asked to wear it again the next day. I call that a win.