A Mermaid

Many of you guessed correctly!  Lily is going to be a mermaid for Halloween. I really like little girls to look like little girls, not little women, so I wanted to make a modest mermaid costume, one that she could walk in, and one that she wouldn't freeze in!  I started with a long sleeve white t shirt.  I appliqued some scallop shells for the bikini top along with some elasticized trim that continues around the shirt for the strap.  The fabric I used for the scallops was found in the costume section of JoAnns.  It's a pretty sea blue color with glittery specks on it.  Lily loves all things that shine.  I used Steam A Seam 2 and just used a warm setting on my iron and a press cloth because I know from experience that the iron sticks on the glittery spots.  And it worked well.  I appliqued using my free motion foot and just stitched by eye using silver metallic thread.  That was a mistake!  The metallic thread is horrible to work with!  It kept snapping.  The best combination for success was a size 90 needle and lowering the tension.  Even then, there was a lot of rethreading going on.  

Her skirt is made of more slippery, fraying, horrible to work with stuff from the costume section.  I made an elastic waist with a single seam up the front of the skirt.  The skirt rounds down from the split on the right side and into a tail on the left.  The tail has some batting in it and I quilted swirly oceany shapes onto it which Lily thinks looks gorgeous and fancy.  I added some of the trim in a loop at the center of the tail so she can wear it on her wrist, keeping the tail up so she can walk and trick or treat with ease!

I added strips of super cool metallic fabric to the waist because I thought it looked seaweed like and because it adds more sparkle!  I am going to use some of it on a headband too to look like seaweed in her hair.

Then I will be done costumes for the year!  Penny is going to wear one that I made a number of years ago.  Pictures of the kids all decked out will be shared on Halloween!