Kids. They come up with the craziest ideas.
A couple of weeks ago, Stargirl and her friends decided they wanted swimmable mermaid tails. Why? I’m still not sure, but it was pretty important to them. They checked around on eBay, but decided the mermaid tails were too expensive or shipped from China. They didn’t want to spend the money on the mermaid tails made in the USA, and they didn’t want to risk buying one from China.
So, they decided their moms should make the mermaid tails. They found instructions on Youtube that made the process look SO easy. And being the sucker kind mom I am, I told Stargirl I’d give it a try.
We went shopping and bought 2 yards of swimsuit fabric, thread, a zipper, and basic blue flippers. Most of the instructions I found called for a monofin, but I wasn’t about to pay $60 just for a fin. Flippers would have to do.
I watched a few Youtube instruction videos, until I found a couple I liked.
This one has good instructions for taking measurements.
And I like the way this video (embedding disabled, so visit the link) uses a zipper, so you can remove the flippers for cleaning.
I measured Stargirl and drew a pattern on the back of some old wrapping paper.
I cut out the pattern and two layers of fabric. Then I just sewed around the mermaid tail and added a zipper on the side of the fin, so I could put the flippers in. Considering I’m no seamstress, it turned out pretty well! Stargirl was happy!
Doesn’t she make a cute mermaid?
She looks beautiful!