Tesslyn's: Ariel's Costume Part 1 Tutorial Tail

Ariel's Tail Tutorial

What you'll need For Fin:

1/2yd stretch green fabric
1/2yd of white or nude fabric

1yd shiny blue fabric
1yd blue silk

Matching Thread

Optional: Ariel Wig
Flounder stuff animal or Basket
(I got my Flounder at the Disney Store)

For part 2 Click Here for top and flower

Step 1:
wrap your fabric around your child leaving 2" extra
this will give your child wiggle room.

Sew the raw edge up and make a white one.

sew 1" over and 1/2" up making a Rectangle

now I measured my daughters waist to her knees which was 10" and then I added 3" (making it 13" from the waist) for the point of the fin.

so below I have pins were I want her waist band to start. I left 1" up top. before I started to measure her length. on the to sides

take a ruler and match the 10" pin with the 13" pin and make a straight line this will make the point of the fin. my line is yellow below.

When cutting leave 5/8" to hem

With this fabric it doesn't fray so I just folded it up once. pin and sew I did a small pleat on the sides so the fabric would tilt down.

Step 2:

wrap your fabric around your kids waist to measure how long you want your fabric make sure to over lap a little for the front and add 1" for sewing.

use your blue silk and your Fold in half with the see through

see through fabric fabric in the middle

                             lay your body piece on top and
                                leave 11/2" from the fold           Fold your side fabrics so you end
                          (you can leave more depending on         at your point of your fold
                            how big you want your top to be)

you will be over lapping pin where the body will hit or
you can just mark it with a pen

you can see my pen mark below. its kind a in a U shape.

Now add 5/8" to your line.

Picture below I have another pen mark below my first one.

now pin and sew your to sides

Flip and pin your raw edges leaving the middle open

Sew ... And stuff lightly and sew the open closed

Step 3:

measure a little above your kids knees to the floor and add 1" (mine was 11" after adding 1")

I just cut 24 11" inch long and 41/2" width Rectangles

If your serging Leave it as a Rectangle it will make it easy for you to do the turns

if your using a sewing machine you can ether cut like the picture below or keep it as a rectangle and

and just curve it as you sew and just cut the extra fabric off. make sure to use the zig zag stitch

now you'll have 24 fins flip them and iron them flat.

Make sure when ironing to put a pillow case over them or it will burn your fabric.

now I just serged the top of each fin. this is optional.

then I layered them on top of each other and pined to the white fabric.

And just used the stretch stitch on my sewing machine to sew them on.

now I put the fins on and the body over and had my daughter try it on so I knew how far to pull up my white fabric. then pin and sew the white fabric to the body.

Step 4:
now take your top piece and pin on your fin starting with the back, pin tell you get to the front and over lap your top piece and pin. I sewed mine first before serging so I if I need to change the over lap I could easily unpick it. (which I did LOL.) then when I had it where I wanted it, I just serged the raw edge. but this is not a must.