Ariel and the Inappropriate Priest.

Staying awake is not my strong point – I get that from my dad.  In reality, I have been sewing a lot, it’s just that every time I go to blog about what I’ve done for the day I fall asleep and wake up with my laptop half hanging off my bed.  This time I finally got something in writing, so here’s what I’ve accomplished so far on Chris’s Halloween costume, which if you haven’t guessed from the last post is Ariel aka the Little Mermaid.  (Ahhhhh, he’s going to be so pretty!!)

I had this grand idea to make the top actually look like seashells.  What I would do was simple: trace a seashell shape on the fabric, cut that out and fold darts all around it to add texture.  Simple right?  I bet you know where this is heading…

Started with the shape, which I folded it in half and cut out:

Drew lines on the fabric to follow for folds:

Folding did NOT go smoothly.  In fact it was a pain in the ass.  But after about 4 hours I ended up with this:

Ok, not terrible, until you realize that the edges are all uneven and fraying, oh and there’s that whole “it got a LOT smaller from the folding and ended up the size of a pasty instead of a bra” issue.  Either way I decided to try the other one and gave up real quick

The seashell bra that I had such high hopes for is now a toy for Mila.  Recycling, yeah!  To save time and frustration I decided to go with a simple triangle top instead.  I tried cutting it freehand but that didn’t work so I grabbed a pattern off the internet.

Trace, cut, fold and…much better!  I folded the sides in ¼” to give it a nice finish and the bottom came up 1” to leave space for a string to go through.

Next I ripped a piece of fabric, folded it in half, stitched and pulled it through with a pin to make the string.  I repeated with smaller pieces for the neck straps.

The bottom string slips right through.

For the neck straps, I sewed them onto the tops of the triangles about a ¼”-1/2” down.  And the top is complete!!

I already started working on the tail, but I’ll save that for another post.  This weekend I’m subjecting poor Chris to a fitting, I think I’ll owe him lots of beer for that.  By the way, did you know the Little Mermaid came out in 1989!  Crazy, right?.  Almost as crazy as the inappropriate scene with the priest in that movie – if you catch my drift…

❤