My niece Clara demanded that I make her a “Dora Mermaid” costume for Halloween. Her color choice? Pink, of course! I started out by making her a quick tank and pair of shorts out of an aqua knit and attached the mermaid tail to the shorts. You could easily buy a solid color knit outfit–shorts or leggings and a top–and attach the tail and ruffles to make this costume.
When my boys were little, they loved to play dress-up and pretend, so Halloween costumes got quite a bit of use in our house. I wanted to make sure that Clara’s mermaid costume would be easy to get in and out of, comfortable to wear, and more durable than a store-bought costume. I think I got this right!
Supplies:
1 yard of knit fabric for the top/shorts
1.5 yards of satin or whatever fabric you want for the tail
1 yard of batting
2 yards of tulle in the same shade as the knit
Thread (I matched this to the color of the knit, but you could contrast it also)
1. Start my making the top and shorts. I used one of her t-shirts and a pair of leggings to make the pattern. Sew strips of the tulle to the front of the shirt before putting the pieces together. I finished all the edges with a lettuce hem (on my sewing machine) using this great tutorial from oliver + s.
2. I made a quick tail pattern by tracing Clara’s legs on a piece of butcher paper and then drawing a tail over her traced legs. I made sure to add several inches to the length so the tail will flare out behind her.
3. Cut two pieces of the satin and once piece of batting using the pattern.
4. Cut the tulle into long strips, about 4 inches high. Gather the tulle and pin it to the right side of one piece of satin. Match the gathered edge of the knit to the edge of the satin and have the loose edges of the tulle pointing towards the middle of the fabric so that it will stick out from the edges when you turn the whole thing. At this point you can baste on the tulle or just leave it pinned–your preference.
(At this point I’m wishing I took pictures while I was making the tail. Oh well, lesson learned!)
5. Make a sandwich of your tail pieces:
- batting
- satin with tulle face up
- satin without tulle face down
6. Sew the whole thing together leaving it open at the waist. Be careful not to catch the loose edge of the tulle in your seam. Start by sewing the bottom of the tail. Then you can pin the tulle out of the way and sew the sides. The bottom corners are the worst. Don’t worry if a bit of tulle gets caught up, you can snip the edges out.
7. Clip all curved edges and corners. Turn the tail so that the satin is on the outside. Turn the fabric in at the waist and top stitch. Also top stitch around the edge of the tail and stitch some decorative lines down the middle. You can use matching or contrasting thread and get as fancy as you want here.
8. Attach the tail to the waistband of the shorts. I did this by tacking it on both sides and in the middle. I also left some “gaps” so that there was room for the waistband the stretch as the tail is non-stretchy. (See photo)
Verdict! Making the costume was much easier that writing a tutorial. I hope you get the gist of how to do this. Next time I’ll take photos as I’m constructing and try to include some pattern pieces as well.
More photos of the costume on Flickr.
I came across an interesting article from The New York Times today, Maybe It’s Time for Plan C. Basically it’s about how quitting your day job to pursue a dream may not be all that you think it is.
Since I’m not making enough money sewing and selling bags to “quit my day job,” I did have to get a new job. I start Monday teaching English at one of the local community colleges.
