Mermaid Costume
I have been trying without much success to find a picture of my mermaid costume that I made and wore to a nautical themed party in 2000. Out of frustration I dug it out and bravely tried it on – I have had two children since then, and gained a few kilos before that after all – and was pleasantly surprised to find that it actually still fits ok. Well, just.
Anyway, here is the result of our photoshoot.
The design was inspired by Ariel, from one of my favorite Disney movies, The Little Mermaid.
I used a flesh toned body suit as the base, with sequined knit fabric for the tail. I put a split in the back so I could move (very important at a party) and made a “fin” frill for the bottom to hide my feet.
The shells were a little more challenging. I drew a rough pattern of a clam shell, but with the finger bits spread out so they could be shaped. I cut out four shells in a white sparkly/pearly Lycra fabric (scrap from another project) and two from thin purple card to go in between for body and to give a slightly purple tinge. Obviously I wasn’t thinking about cleaning it at the time!
The pieces then got zigzagged together around the edges and shaped and stitched onto me.
This was the really tricky part. I had the body suit on, standing in front of the mirror and tried to pin the shells on but this proved to be far too dangerous, so instead I got some thread and a needle and hand basted each of the clam fingers to the suit, all nicely overlapped and in the correct position. Then it was just a matter of stitching it all around.
For those who are wondering, yes it was a great party!
Polymer clay beads
I have made beads for female relatives as 21st birthday gifts.
This one was for my cousin who likes the colour pink.
I made a buterfly shape cane from the clay and cut slices to cover the large round beads. The medium sized beads are simple jelly rolls and the small ones are puchased craft beads.
My orinal idea was to have a larger butterfly pendant with beads dangling off it, but I wasn’t happy with how the butterfly turned out, so left it out.
Here is the butterfly, and another attempt from scraps.
Ewan’s sleeping bag
I made my elder son a custom sized sleeping bag when he was a toddler. My husband Keith and I used to camp quite a lot so we needed something for him to sleep in without spending too much hard earned cash.
It is designed to fit two self-inflating sleeping mats inside for padding, with a bit folded over at the top as a “pillow”. Keith came up with this idea yet still insists on using it with the mats sticking out the top and having a real pillow on top!
The bottom piece is two layers gabardine for durability, (the mat fits in between these) the top is blue polar fleece and the lining is flannel.
I copied some fish motifs from my favorite duvet cover to make applique shapes from scraps of fleece. The seaweed shape was drawn freehand and reversed for the other side.
It was very tricky to get all the layers in their correct place when sewing up, and I had to unpick seams a few times 
but the end result was worth it, and my son liked it very much.
My first post
Woo hoo! This is my very first post on my new blog. How exciting.
The purpose of this blog is to show off to the world all the wonderful things I have been creating and hopefully inspire other people to do the same. My next step will be to get photos so I have something to write about.
A big thank you to Raewyn for helping me with this project.
