Flippin' your fins you don't get too far

When asked what she wanted for Christmas, Katie just kept coming up with the same answer.  A mermaid tail she could wear in the bath!  Back to that old chestnut again.  Obviously more thought had gone into it this year.  She'd even worked out how I could make it (a mini Auntie Sandra in the making?).  Apparently I could just get some of that black stuff (scuba material) and attach some flippers to the bottom!  I mean, how stylish would that be?  She was determined that she be able to wear it in the bath.

After looking online I discovered many people selling mermaid tails suitable for swimming, not just for use in a bath!  We thought this was going a bit too far.  She'd look really great pitching up at the local leisure centre!  And I know we live right next to the coast, but it is the North Sea we're talking about.  Turns out that Katie wasn't too far wrong.  People tend to enclose flippers in lycra rather than scuba material though.

The tail was easy enough to make.  I got some green sparkly lycra and some purple lycra (for the shell bra).  I did think about getting a contrast for the waist band and the 'flipper' but just used the wrong side of the sparkly stuff.  I drew around Katie's legs and added a seam allowance.  I put a zip in down one side.  That was another problem with the first tail.  As well as not being able to go in the bath wearing it the poor bairn couldn't zip herself in to cover her legs completely.  The tail part is stiffened with a couple of sheets of craft foam glued together and cut to shape.  It's all high tech in my house!

At this point I took it along for Katie to have a try on.  Mainly because it looked so long and skinny I didn't think anyone would be able to fit into it.  I did tell her that there was plenty of time and fabric to make another one if it didn't fit.  She insisted that one was fine.  One of her little friends was along to play that afternoon and got a sneak preview.  Her friend's verdict was promising.

'Ooh Katie, it's like you've got real scales.'

Katie's was more practical

'At last, I've got a zip!'

After that I just added a waistband.  I made a pattern for the shells for the bra from one of Katie's crop tops.  The straps are just white elastic dyed with tea.  I expect after it's been in the bath a few times they'll be back to white.

Such a tasteful shade of lime green don't you think?  Apparently when Katie's been in the bath the water turns the colour of the sea!  I'm not sure whether it's the dye coming from the lycra or the foam.  Mind you, I think if it was coming from the lycra it would look more like there'd been an incident at a nuclear site!

Making Maleficent

Happy New Year Everyone!  It's been quiet on the craft front in the Auntie Sandra household.  There was a mad rush before Christmas with outfits for the girls, a table runner for their Mam and bunting with photos on, among other things.  Since then I've been really lazy though and just doing jigsaws that Santa brought, and I don't think I can really count them.

So, after Charlotte's Halloween experience of being a character no-one would recognise (see here) she decided she wanted to be Maleficent for Christmas.  Very festive.  Originally she asked for a dress with the wings and horns, but we compromised with the Christening dress.

So we still needed horns and a train, but no wings.  Thankfully.  I found some black, crinkly fabric to try to get the texture and the 'V' pattern down the centre front and back.  I've never attempted to make anything on the bias before, so why not go for something high profile like the centre front of a dress?  I adapted Simplicity 5520.  When I say adapted, I mean I took out some panels, narrowed the whole dress massively, altered the sleeves and how they were set in the dress, added a big collar,changed the neckline and stuck a big train in the back.  Otherwise it's exactly the same!  After I'd made the changes to the pattern I worked out how much fabric to buy.  Because it was going to be cut on the diagonal of the fabric I ended up doing lots of diagrams and Pythagoras' Theorem came into play.  I also had to hunt out a protractor.  Does everyone do things like this, or is it just me that's that sad?

I remembered to take photos while making, so I'm afraid I will be sharing them.

Front piece pinned on fabric on the bias.

Fronts and backs cut out.

Fronts and backs attached.  You can just about see that I remembered to add interfacing at the neckline.

A close up of the 'V' effect down the centre front.

The sleeves on the original pattern weren't big enough for my purposes.  In the original Maleficent costume the sleeves are attached down the sides of the dress.  If I'd left them as they were the poor child wouldn't have been able the lift her arms up.  Although that might not have been such a bad thing!

The original pattern is on the right.  You can see I basically just stretched the shape out.  Once Charlotte had tried on the dress we discovered the sleeves were too long.

By several inches!  So the sleeves had to come back out to be altered.

I also changed the shape while I was on.

This photo was from before the alteration, but you can see how the sleeves are attached all the way down the side seam.

I did an awful lot of rolled hems on this dress.  On the plus side, I now quite enjoy doing them, although I do still tend to have a couple of false starts each time.

Next up was the the train.  I ended up putting a big triangle into the centre back each side of the zip.  I believe the technical term is godet.  Each triangle was split into three sections and each section has a contrast fabric across the bottom part.  It looks dead easy.  It took me about two days to figure out what I was doing!

  

The contrast is supposed to be leather.  Charlotte's obviously isn't.

Then came the collar.  Ah, the collar.

Each side has two separate 'petals'.  These petals join at centre front and back.  I thought I needed some sort of triangular shape.  After much experimentation I came up with this shape.

The curve down the right hand side is where it fits to the neckline.  I needed two of those for each top and bottom, in fabric and in stiff interfacing.  Thirty two in all.  Seems a bit excessive, doesn't it?

I did think to start with that I might need to put wire in them to keep their shape.  I didn't in the end.  It would have held the shape better, but I wanted it to be comfortable for Charlotte to wear.  That is after all what it is for.

One side of the finished collar.

After that the dress itself only needed a zip putting in.  So here we have the finished dress.

Front.

Back.  And close up of train.

I'm hoping that if I don't mention to anyone, that they won't notice that some of the grains in the triangles are going the wrong way.  But you're not going to tell anyone, are you?

On to the headdress.  I got to do papier mache.  I think I was about ten when I last did that.  I made some twisted horn shapes out of tin foil.  And blew up a balloon to the size of Charlotte's head.

I then spent several days covered in flour and water glue and newspaper.  After everything was covered and dry I tried the headdress on Charlotte and cut it to shape.  I attached the horns with tape and covered in yet more newspaper.

The horns are slightly wonky and I think they're too big, but I'm proud.

It was then time to get out the glue gun and cover it in fabric.

All ready in time to open on Christmas morning.  I'm just waiting for photos of Charlotte wearing the outfit to show you.

And what did the other niece want for Christmas?  Followers of this blog will know Katie has a bit(!) of a mermaid/Ariel obsession.  This year I caved.  She now has a tail and bra to wear in the bath!  More on that to follow.