My lesson in fabric.
The official patterns call for wool gabardine. There are a few problems with that... namely, I can't find it anywhere local in the right colors, and the pattern says it's dry clean only.
After some research on Star Trek cosplay, the next best option seems to be ponte. It's thick, which is the most important part, and a bit stretchy... reminds me of the material that my grandmas would wear for pants. The jacket/pant costumes call for fusible stabilizer on everything, so they won't be very stretchy, but the skant is required to have at least 25% stretch.
Rumor has it that polyester spandex interlock (aka double knit) or matte jersey will also work. They are both a "step down" in quality/thickness, but I saw a really awesome gold uniform in the interlock. I saw the same gold interlock at Joann, but it looked like it was already starting to pill up. The skant pattern says that heavyweight lycra and lycra blends are also good options.
Color wins the day.
Really, the choice was forced on me, because ponte was the only fabric I could find at Joann with colors that matched well enough.
Red and blue were "cabernet" and "teal" in "stretch refined ponte" at 2 yards each, and very pricy. I picked a plain ponte for black because it was less than half the cost and I needed 6 at least yards for all 3 uniforms. This means I can wash the uniforms on "delicate" or "hand wash," and hang to dry.
I also picked up a bunch of muslin to do a trial run for the jacket, because it is pretty complicated and needs a nicely trim fit... I don't want to ruin the expensive fabric! I may also do a muslin trial run of the skant, because my top is size M while my hips are XL, and I've never had to blend sizes in one garment like that before.
The official patterns call for wool gabardine. There are a few problems with that... namely, I can't find it anywhere local in the right colors, and the pattern says it's dry clean only.
After some research on Star Trek cosplay, the next best option seems to be ponte. It's thick, which is the most important part, and a bit stretchy... reminds me of the material that my grandmas would wear for pants. The jacket/pant costumes call for fusible stabilizer on everything, so they won't be very stretchy, but the skant is required to have at least 25% stretch.
Rumor has it that polyester spandex interlock (aka double knit) or matte jersey will also work. They are both a "step down" in quality/thickness, but I saw a really awesome gold uniform in the interlock. I saw the same gold interlock at Joann, but it looked like it was already starting to pill up. The skant pattern says that heavyweight lycra and lycra blends are also good options.
Color wins the day.
Really, the choice was forced on me, because ponte was the only fabric I could find at Joann with colors that matched well enough.
Red and blue were "cabernet" and "teal" in "stretch refined ponte" at 2 yards each, and very pricy. I picked a plain ponte for black because it was less than half the cost and I needed 6 at least yards for all 3 uniforms. This means I can wash the uniforms on "delicate" or "hand wash," and hang to dry.
I also picked up a bunch of muslin to do a trial run for the jacket, because it is pretty complicated and needs a nicely trim fit... I don't want to ruin the expensive fabric! I may also do a muslin trial run of the skant, because my top is size M while my hips are XL, and I've never had to blend sizes in one garment like that before.
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