Monday, October 31, 2011

The Little Merboy

A very rare species, indeed...

Merboy, front view
Recently, Big Bear read the story of the Little Mermaid and watched the Disney movie and declared that was what he wanted to be for Halloween. Then one of his preschool buddies pointed out that mermaids are girls. Uh-oh. Big Bear was not happy to hear this. But he thought about it for a bit and decided he could be a mer-boy instead. Phew! Crisis averted... (well, other than the fact that then I actually had to figure out how to make a merboy costume...).

Merboy, back view
For the bottom half, I used McCall's 4964, a pattern for fleece pants that included side seams. I then drafted a fin shape to insert into the side seam. I used fleece for the pants and overlaid each piece with the fancy fish-scale looking fabric. The fins were made of felt overlaid with the same scale material. I was worried about the weight of the fins, so I added in the gathered tulle on the backside of each to help support them so they wouldn't just flip backward.

Merboy, side view
The shirt is from Burda 9537, a basic t-shirt design. I changed it up a little by adding a center back seam and seams along the top of each sleeve so that I could insert some fins. Again, I used the scale fabric overlaid onto felt and used gathered tulle to help support either side of each fin (and to help tie in with the look of the tail fin). I cut the shirt extra long in the torso and sleeves to allow me to cut a jagged edge (in lieu of hems).

Merboy cuteness
And then we finished it all up with some fun merboy face stripes, a little bit of blue hairspray, and some shell necklaces.

Now Merboy is ready for some Halloween fun!

Happy Halloween!!!

5 comments:

  1. You did a great job but I can't help laughing, in a good way. He is so stinking cute in it.

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  2. You really outdid yourself. That is the cutest thing ever. BB looks so happy and oh so cute.

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  3. How fun! And what a crastive little guy deciding what he wanted to be!!

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  4. Wow Robin you are so talented to be able to change patterns like that! I think we need to see you on Project Runway soon! Also, in the Harry Potter books, there were merpeople, who were a whole underwater society with mer-women and mer-men!

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  5. How precious, and what a creative idea! The costume looks fabulous!

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