Peli Motto: The Coveralls

This is a continuation of a 3-part Peli Motto: The Coveralls costume/cosplay build. If you’ve jumped to this page from an online search, you’re on page 2 of 3. You can jump back to the beginning here: Peli Motto: The Coveralls

Continued from page 1 (cutting)…

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The pads were really fun to make. I used that pesky protractor again and a heat erasable pen to mark 60/120 degree diamonds with 1″ spacing. Then I stitched the fabric to 3 layers of quilt batting over the markings, trimmed the excess batting, ironed away the markings.

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Next thing I did was cut and stitch the athletic mesh fabric to the sleeve pizzas, collar, and sleeve cuffs. I stitched around the outside and in diagonals so it would appear to be one layer of textured fabric.

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I finished the knee pads in the same way you’d sew a throw pillow. With right sides together I stitched around the edge of my orange diamond fabric to some scrap black fabric (brown would be better, but I didn’t have any), leaving an opening to turn them right sides out. To attach the pads in place, I had to open up the pants at the side seams. Then I stitched the pads in place 1/4″ from the edges (which also closed up the opening I pinned earlier). Since the coveralls were just huge everywhere, I took this opportunity to take the pants in at the sides…and proceeded to take in every single seam elsewhere (inner legs, top sides, sleeves). Since most seams were felled, taking them in also reduced bulk and weight all over.

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Assembling the sleeves was a little more complicated. I stitched the sleeve pizzas back in place, and top stitched 1/4″ on the wearer’s front section of each sleeve (to create a faux felled seam evident on Peli’s sleeves). Then I attached the cuffs, folded them to the inside, stitched the sleeves closed at the underarm, and hand stitched seam allowance over the raw edge of the scratchy cuff.

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Peli also has some felled seams/epaulets at the shoulders, so I stitched a faux felled seam to kind of mimic hers. It’s not exact, but it’s close enough. Same thing on her back sides. The front collar needed to be closed up down the front, so I just turned in and top stitched what was there. Since I removed a snap on the front camp collar, I shoved a scrap piece in the hole and darned it in place with some pretty rough stitching. You can’t really see it after weathering, but I know it’s there. In some coveralls, there are flies on the back sides, and maybe hers has them too, so I added faux felled seams here. And then the front pockets needed to be pointy at the bottoms, so I seam ripped, folded in to points, ironed, and top stitched back into place.

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Now all that’s left are the collar, sleeves, and belt loops. Like I did with the sleeve cuffs, with right sides together, I attached the collar, folded it inward, and hand stiched it on the inside. I set in the sleeves like any normal lazy person (with raw edges on the inside, duh). And with scrap orange fabric, I attached belt loops (not pictured until later: two in the front, one on each side seam, and one back center). The coveralls look so different now!

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Speaking of the belt, I had some scrap faux leather fabric in my stash so I quickly made a 2″ wide velcro-closed belt with a 4″ overlap and slightly rounded rectangle edges. I noticed some vertical stitching on Peli’s belt, so I used that rough pattern to attach the velcro. I stitched 5/8″ from the edge, 5/8″ from there, 10/8″ from there, and another 5/8″ from there…then repeated that stitching every 6″ until the other end.

Reminder! This is a long post with a lot of pictures, so I’ve broken it into three pages. Now that all the cutting (page 1 below) and sewing (you’re on page 2) have been covered, let’s proceed to the dying/weathering (click the page 3 button below)!