Toothless Cosplay Part 2 - Jacket

Ok onto the Toothless jacket, this is the main feature of the costume I wanted to kind of look like I was a human toothless. So in order to make the jacket I needed the right materials. I took the long drive to Spotlight and bought a fake leather fabric. This particular fabric was black and had a big scale pattern. It was fairly expensive fabric and I needed a lot of it so I was glad that I was using my birthday money to pay for it. Next I drove to Lincraft and found a crushed velvet fabric that I wanted to use for the lining of the jacket. (Note for future reference don't use a very stretchy fabric with a fabric that doesn't stretch at all. Though the end result looks nice I am afraid to wash it because I think the velvet will over stretch and hang loose from the fake leather.) I bought two different colours a black and a light red. This was to symbolize Toothless' tail when he gets the new fin, you can only see a small part of the red so I think it looks fabulous. Though if I make this jacket again I would go with a woven red and black fabric.

Using the pattern mentioned in the Toothless design post I cut out the pieces for the jacket. But in doing this I altered the pattern so that it would suit my character and fabric. I got rid of neck ruffle and altered the sleeves so the fitted part of the sleeve finished at the elbow. Then I measured the end of the sleeve marked it on the fabric and made is flare out into a wide tube. I did this to symbolize the thickening of Toothless' arms.

If you plan to make the jacket this way you'll need:
- paper clips
- zip foot/roller foot (I found for most of it though my normal foot was fine)
- patience

These are all the pieces cut out. To sew the pieces together I followed a tutorial on YouTube. I did this because at the time I was not very good at sewing. I am mostly self taught. Here is a link to the tutorial if you are interested - Simplicity Pattern 2172 - Steampunk Coat it is a very good tutorial and you can find other tutorials that help follow through the rest of this pattern, showing the bodice and the skirt.

These are pictures of most of the jacket sewn together. It is still missing the lining and the sleeves. Since I was using fake leather I could not use pins so I researched online and found that paper clips work and no they! They are the best way to pin leather together especially if you have a box with different size paper clips. Note, since my fake leather was patterned I could not iron the seams down without damaging the pattern. In order to overcome this I did something like a jean seam stitch where I reinforced all seams with another stitch to get it to sit flat. On the side seams I sewed them down facing toward the back and on the back seam I laid the seam flat and sewed on either side.

Here is a picture of the lining installed. Though I do not like leather and velvet together I think that the velvet by itself would have made a very nice jacket or dress. This is because it had a nice flow and weight to it.

This is what I have finished of the jacket I still need to add the other sleeve. I plan on added the other sleeve and then shortening both because they are a little too long and adding Velcro instead of buttons to the front. I think that this will look neater for the cosplay and buttons I think just wouldn't work with fake leather. This is probably the most frustrating costume I've made because the jacket is just too heavy for the machine. This is why I have been procrastinating on finishing the last sleeve.

Anyway I plan to have it finished for when the second movie is released in cinemas. I might have some pictures after that. I am currently starting to work on the head piece and should have that finished soon. My next few posts will be on random sewing projects that I have been working on lately. So yeah, I am really happy with how the jacket looks even if is was a pain to make and is uncomfortable. Well if it is FOR COSPLAY! I can deal with being uncomfortable as long as the costume is pretty.