Belated Photos

Yes I know it's the middle of February, but we finally have photos of Maleficent and mermaid costumes!  Better late than never.  Possibly.

First up we have the lovely Charlotte as Maleficent.

We think we need to add some kind of strap to the headdress to keep it on the poor bairn.  It's a wee bit wobbly.  It's a bit like Charlotte's trying to do posture exercises by balancing it on her head.  It's also slightly out of proportion but I'm sure she'll cope.

And then we have the ever charming Katie as Ariel.

She really did fit into that ridiculously sized tail.  That's her sitting on a rock pose by the way.  Fetching, don't you think?  I'm particularly loving the massive white bandage/plaster on her thumb.  Knowing Katie she probably had a paper cut,or something equally as dramatic!

I'm waiting for a parcel of fabric as we speak.  It's Katie's birthday in a couple of weeks (Yikes!).  When asked what she wanted her first reply was a rabbit.  I'm afraid Auntie Sandra can't oblige there, but we settled on Anna's winter outfit from Frozen.

                                              

And we definitely need the cape.  Fortunately I've found a fantastic tutorial.

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!

The Little Mermaid

So after Katie got her pink Ariel dress for Christmas 2011 she still wanted a green tail and purple bra for birthday.  We did try to persuade her that it still wasn't age appropriate (to be fair, I'm not sure when it would be), but she wasn't having any of it.  She was at this point obsessed with 'The Little Mermaid'.  I'm fairly certain that's what she wanted to be when she grows up.  Not much has changed mind you.  In the end I caved.  You can't really argue with an almost 5 year old about princess costumes.  It was obvious that she wasn't going to stop asking until she got one.  I was just going to have to bite the bullet.

It was around this time that we found out her plans for her tail and bra.  She wanted to wear them in the bath!  I assume she was going to splash around a bit too.  Funny as the idea was, we did have to tell her that even if she did get a mermaid tail (and bra) she wouldn't be allowed to wear it in the bath.  This caused not a little consternation.  After a lot of thought and soul searching (all of about 2 seconds) she decided that she could live with that.  A green tail and purple bra it was.

How to make a mermaid's tail?  I had no idea.  By this point I thought I could probably tackle most princess dresses, but a tail was something else entirely.  I couldn't use faithful Simplicity 2817.  I did come across a few mermaid type patterns, but most of them involved a long, tight skirt flared at the bottom rather than an actual tail.  Luckily I found this

The tail part looked great, but I could imaging Katie's reaction if I tried to make her one of the tops.  I know, they're much more suitable for a 5 year old, but she wanted a bra.  Unfortunately you don't find many bra/shell top patterns for children.  I was going to have to wing it with that one.

The tail I just made from the usual crepes backed satin but I overlaid it with some green net type stuff with sequins.  The fin of the tail has wadding in between the top and bottom layers.  The swirl design is then quilted through the layers and the sequins are sewn on top.  I'm no good at sewing sequins on.  When they're in a long strip I just can't seem to stop them falling off the thread.  I've tried knotting the ends of the thread, gluing the threads, tucking the ends under and sewing, all to no avail.  If anyone has any top tips I'd love to hear them.  I think the only change I made to the tail pattern was I didn't put a zip in the waistband.  There seemed to be enough stretch with just the elastic.

For the bra I just made it up as I went along.  I had no idea if it would work or not.  I made shell-shaped pieces (try saying that 7 times fast!) out of crepe backed satin and used wadding and sequins like on the tail.  For the straps I made long tubes of fabric and threaded elastic through them.  The only problem was figuring out how to attach the shoulder straps to the bodice strap and still being able to stretch in all directions.  In the end I just looped the shoulder straps over the bodice strap and sewed them back on themselves.  This means they can move around on the bodice strap which is what I wanted.

So here she is.  Our Little Mermaid.  I'm having the same problems as before with editing the photos I think it's because they were taken on a phone, so I'm afraid you're just going to have to put up with in their uncropped state.  You will note that Katie/Ariel is posing on her 'rock'.  Also known as a foot stool.  She refuses to walk when wearing the tail.  There is an opening down one side to stick your legs through and a loop to hold it up with.  Katie's comment when she saw the opening was "Can you not just put a zip in it so I'm like a real mermaid?"  Er, no Katie, it doesn't quite work like that.

I think overall she was pleased with the outfit.  Even if we wouldn't let her in the bath with it on.

Part of your World

November 2011.  Katie aged 4.
'I know what I want for Christmas.'
'Do you?  That's nice.  And what do you want for Christmas?'
'I want a green tail and a purple bra'
'I'm not really sure that's age appropriate'
'But I want to be Ariel!'
'How about the pink dress she wears?'

This conversation went on for several weeks.  We eventually got Katie persuaded that she would have Ariel's pink dress.  For those of you not familiar with 'The Little Mermaid'

this is what I was aiming towards.  While searching for inspiration I kept coming across this cartoon

on this website.  It made me chuckle every time I saw it.  I had very similar feelings about the dress myself.  I don't know if you've noticed yet but I don't do pink.  Unfortunately the nieces love it.  I keep trying to train them but to no avail.

Anyhoo, back to Ariel.  I used good old Simplicity 2817 for the bodice.  Raised the neckline an inch or so and narrowed it down a bit so it wasn't hanging off Katie too much.  For the sleeves I  used the long, puffed sleeve pattern from the witch pattern (Simplicity 2569) with some white applique bits on them.  I'd learnt my lesson trying to adapt the Rapunzel sleeves!  They're much better than that attempt.  The skirt wasn't too problematical either.  I just gathered up a layer of white crepe backed satin with a couple of layers of tulle on top.  The top layer of white is slightly stiffer (it wasn't supposed to be but this is what happens when you order fabric off the internet without asking for samples first) with dots on.  Not strictly accurate, but it got lots of positive comments.  And who doesn't love spotty fabric?  The top pink layer I made the same way as the puffy bits on Cinderella's skirt but bigger.  I just cut a semi circle of pink satin, hemmed the straight edge and gathered around the curved edge to attach at the waist.  I think I just cut the biggest semi circle I could out of the width of fabric.  When I made Cinderella's dress I couldn't believe how easy it was to make those puffy bits (apart from the fact I was making them in organza of course).  I'd looked at the dress before and couldn't get my head around how it would work at all.  You live and learn.

So, the completed Ariel dress.

Ah yes, Santa also brought Katie an Ariel wig for Christmas that year.  Just when you thought Katie's hairstyles couldn't get any better.

February 2012.  Coming up to Katie's 5th birthday.
'I know what I want for my birthday.'
'Do you?  That's nice.  And what do you want for your birthday?'
'I want a green tail and a purple bra!'

To be continued...