| This outfit was a commission for Jonathan Sheen. I made him a jacket, kilt, socks, sporran, vest, and a shirt with a lace jabot. He has more pictures of Sideshow's George Lazenby action figure modelling this outfit at his
Leviathan Studios site. I've never seen this movie, so all I had to go by were the screen captures and other photos Jonathan gave me as reference material. And Jonathan gave me LOTS of good photos to work from - the more images, showing the more angles (front, back, side, close-up, long-shot, etc.), the better. He also asked me to write up a how-to for it. I'll tweak it as I think of additional info, and edit it to make it more coherent, but here are some basics. Bail out now if you don't want to read my how-to notes.
The vest and shirt were based on a commercial pattern. (If you want or need a primer on commercial patterns, there is one further down the page.) The vest now opens lower than the original design. I replaced the pattern's shirt collar with a narrow band to cover any gap between the shirt and the jabot. I decided to make the jabot a separate piece from the shirt, since the shirt closes in the front, but the jabot closes in the back according to the photo references. |
| Cut a strip of the same fabric you use to make the shirt. You can fray check the edges so you don't have to seam it. Cut strips of lace about three times as long as the finished jabot will be wide. Make some gathering stitches along the top of each strip using the longest stitch length setting on the sewing machine. Gently pull the threads so the lace bunches up at the top. Sew the gathered lace onto the strip of fabric. Sew the strip into a stand-up collar. You can adjust the pattern for the pants waistband of a commercial pattern to make a stand-up collar by shortening it and possibly making it more narrow. I used this method to make a jabot for a custom James Bond: On Her Majesty's Secret Service Action Figure |
| To make the tassels, wrap regular red sewing thread around an item. I used this handy sewing tool whose name I can never remember. You know, the seam-measuring-thingy! |
| Carefully slice open one side with an Xacto blade. (You can see the Band-Aid where I sliced open my finger doing this, so I do mean "carefully.") |
| Wrap more red thread around the middle of the tassel. |
| Tie a knot to hold it all together, about a fourth of the way down. Sew the tassel to the socks. |
 
| Socks are just tubes of fabric. I trace around a foot and leg of the figure to make a pattern, fold it in half, then sew along the back side (where the seams in old-fashioned silk stockings used to be). If I need to make it tighter, I sew it again. It's easier to make it tighter than to make it looser! |
 
| I'll add descriptions of how to make the sporran and jacket later. |