I am currently finishing up my costume, and have met several members who have encouraged me to come and introduce myself on the forums, so here I am!
To start off, my name is Caroline, I live in Charleston, and I have been waiting to join the 501st for years. I have been a Star Wars fan for as long as I can remember, but I really became involved in the fandom world about 4 years ago when I became hooked on Ahsoka Tano and discovered the EU. Ahsoka is my favorite Star Wars character, and I am blessed to call Ashley Eckstein (the voice of Ahsoka) a friend. I am also a big Disney fangirl, and was able to attend Star Wars Weekends in Disney for 3 years, and hope to one day work for Disney in Orlando.
My costuming journey began about 3 years ago when I wanted to create an Ahsoka costume, but quickly realized I was missing several fundamental sewing techniques in order to tackle her. So, I switched to Alice in Wonderland where I learned several new sewing skills, and discovered my love for sewing and costuming. One thing led to another, and I ended up starting a princess birthday party business that allows me to sew more costumes and gain more skills, while having a use for the things that I make. 2.5 years later, and I now have Alice, Ariel, Merida, Elsa, Tinker Bell, and Cinderella as a part of my costume collection. I have met members at Atomacon as Alice (Best in Show in the costume contest), and Elsa, Elfstravaganza as Tinker Bell, and the Mt. Pleasant Christmas parade last week as Cinderella.
With all of the knowledge I gained from sewing princess dresses, I started my Juno Eclipse formal uniform during the summer this year. I am very much a perfectionist when it comes to sewing, so as a result, I am very slow, especially when school and princess work robs most of my sewing time. I am nearly finished though, with the only work left being to assemble all the pieces of the jacket, which I hope to have finished by the end of Christmas break (though I had hoped it would be finished in October...). I bought all the non-fabric pieces from various people on the Officer forum, Amazon (glove bases), and eBay (boots), and am very happy with the quality of all of those items. I am going for Level 3 approval, so fingers crossed that all the details are up to the judges' standards.
There's not really any pictures of the jacket in its current state, but I'll try to add some when there is a little more progress.
Belt and rank bars (I also have plans to make a standard staff officer down the road)
Jacket mockup before final revisions (2" belt stand-in)
I look forward to trooping with some of you in the (hopefully near) future!
May the Force be with you, always.
Caroline
