Under Da Sea: Ariel the Little Mermaid two-piece

By ari - August 14, 2015

"It's a dinglehopper. Humans use these little babies to straighten their hair out. See? Just a little twirl here and a yank there and voila. You've got an aesthetically pleasing configuration of hair that humans go nuts over."

Last week, Pattern Revolution had a Disney Princess sew-a-long, featuring a handful of similar-in-style patterns from a few great designers. I knew right away who I wanted to sew up, my favourite disney princess ever, Ariel the Little Mermaid. All my life I've had such a fascination with her in particular. I never really liked many of the other disney movies (they're a bit creepy!) but Ariel had my heart and now I'm older I can see a lot of my inspiration in things stems from her.

I used the Cosette Dress pattern from Violette Fields Threads, but in true me-style, I remixed the heck out of it! Instantly I knew it had to be two piece, the top to emulate her clam-shell bra (in a more appropriate for a three year old sort of way!) with a skirt for her tail. Okay let me tell you that Edison wasn't really impressed with her skit. It wasn't a tail. Nevermind how impractical a tail would be, the kid wants one. Guess what I've started to sew ;)

I found this beautiful batik-dyed purple fabric at Lincraft that just totally reminded me of water and watercolours and it was one of those moments where I knew I had found what I was looking for.

Read all the details on how I remixed & constructed the top, here on Pattern Revolution.

The skirt I thought I knew what I was doing, and then I didn't, and then I wasn't sure I liked it, but now I know I love it!

The skirt is the same as the one from the pattern, I just added a waistband with elastic threaded too. I also sandwiched a "fin" between the waistband and the skirt, and it had to be a little larger to be able to be pulled on still over her hips but I really like it! It's not ordinary, which is my jam!

Man, toddler tummies though! So cute!

She aboslutely loves it, which makes me happy because as you know she is very hard to please! We watched the movie a handful of times as I was sewing this up and yes my sketchbook has many more sketches for other inspiration from the movie (Sebastian the crab, Ursula the sea witch, Flounder, even the canvas sail dress!)

Bonus? I made her some mermaid shorts use the knit shorts part of the Clara Set pattern (also from VFT!)!

Now please tell me I'm not alone in thinking that I can actually sing in unison with her during her seashell-voice-stealing solo? Poor Tim.