Tesslyn's: URSULA COSTUME (Octopus)

The Little Mermaid URSULA Costume!

My Version :)

My little family is going to do The Little Mermaid theme costume, so my 2 year old daughter is going to be Ariel of course I'm going to be Ursula and my husband is going to be Eric. I'll have tutorials for each costume.

What you'll need for Ursula:

Black Dress or Corset here's a patterns you can use: Simplicity 1416 Pattern

(I got my dress at savers like a DI for 8! it was a forever 21 dress.)

Opt: Long Sleeve Purple shirt got mine at Savers for $4 but it was a Target shirt

Tentacles:

2 yards Thick black fabric

2 yards Shiny purple fabric

1/2 yards Felt

Stuffing

14ft long 2.1M Wire (if I was thinking I would of used more, I would of put it on both sides of the Tentacles)

So First you need to measure you waist I did my lower since I'm sewing it on a dress and I wanted more on my butt. so I measured at 34" so I need a 30" circle because you take 4" off when your cutting a circle on fabric because of the bias.

I used this Tutorial to figure out how to make a the size of circle I needed which was 30".

If you now a better way leave a comment :)

radius = circumference divided by 2 times pi
and
2 times pi = 6.28
SO
radius = (30″) divided by (6.28)
radius = 4.77″
which is about 4.75“

How I made my pattern:

so its 9 1/2" long. 4.75" is half

6.75"connecting the dots and divided it in half to get the middle which is around 3.37" mark it

then make 4.75" line again

then repeat it again connecting the dots mine was around 3.62" and half point was 1.81"

then I did 4.75" again like below

Then a made it into a circle but connecting the outer dots and making them a little round.

This is your 30" circle!

Step 2: Now I added 2" for sewing to the dress and if I need to cut the fabric wider.

And added it all the way around and made a outer ring.

Then I added 4 inched and repeated the last step.

The 4 inches is for the body of the octopus.

now in green crayon I marked each tentacles

I did my tentacles around 19" long. I drew a straight line right down the middle of each tentacle and just eyeballed the curvy part. I did it on the wider side so I can take it in on the sewing machine. and play around with it. ill probably make them a lot skinner when I start sewing it together.

so I could of made this a lot faster on my self if I knew before making the pattern. but I had to cut the pattern in half because it didn't fit on the fabric. so I could of just did the pattern like below. and not make the whole round skirt. could of saved my self a lot of paper. lol.

So since I cut it in half I need to add 5/8" to the top so I can sew it together. once again I just eyeballed the 5/8"

Now below is just showing how I laid it on the fabric, to make it fit.

I bought 2 yards

(my little helper making a bigger mess cutting the extra fabric into little pieces)

So for the Purple fabric it was 45" instead of 60" so I had to cut one of the legs off to make it fit.

shown below

And I just sewed it back on.

now put right facing fabric together and sew each tentacle.

this wire is 7ft long so I divided it by 4

(meaning you'll have 4 wires that are 1.75ft long)

Now lay your wire down on your felt

and fold the felt over the wire, making the wire snug against the fold.

and sew as close to the wire that you can get and sew the ends so the wire is secure.

Now with the raw edge facing out sew on the raw edges of the tentacles

(my black fabric has a rubber side, Big Mistake it was horrible to sew on, so I had to put my extra purple fabric on top so my sewing foot wouldn't get stuck.)

now sew your sides together so you can make a circle.

pin your two black fabric together right sides facing each other. and same as purple and sew a u shape.

when you flip your tentacles it should look like this.

Now start stuffing

Pin your Elastic around your ring

(I just used this silver elastic because I had it laying around but you can use knit 1" Elastic.)

I just pined the back front and two sides so when I sewed I just pulled the elastic to fit the fabric length.

Then you fold the fabric over the elastic going inwards and sew about 5/8 in

now your done with the skirt.

To attach it to your dress you can ether sew it on or you can clip it on which I did I just added a clip to the sides, front and back, so I can take it off if I want to.