Ursula- The Little Mermaid

Made for: Middle school production of The Little Mermaid!

Background: I was asked to do a Broadway-inspired Ursula for a middle school production of The Little Mermaid!

Journal Entries: Read more at my Ursula tag

Related Costumes: Belle Ballgown & Village Dress for Theater Production

Patterns Used:
Simplicity 1026

Planning:

This dress was inspired by some of the Broadway/theatrical production Ursula costumes out there. I really lucked out with fabric choices – when we went to buy fabric, it was the weekend before Halloween and our fabric store already had Halloween fabric on clearance. So I was able to pick up lots of fun things to use for this — the black sparkle netting, the purple sparkly mesh, and the purple vinyl especially!

Dress:

I decided to use the exact same Cinderella-inspired pattern I used for the last project I did for a middle-school play — it was already cut down pretty small and was a good basic pattern for something like this. I used a black satin for the main part of the dress, with the bodice lined in a black lining material. I cut the bodice pattern without much change – I added one panel of the purple vinyl to the front, and I added spiral steel boning at the front seam lines for support. I made black straps out of the satin for the top.

Most of the changes I made to the pattern came in at the skirt. I knew I wanted to do something fun with the skirt – initially, I had wanted to do a tight-fitting mermaid style skirt – very Morticia Addams. But then I realized that was going to look too close to the mermaid silhouettes. So I decided to go wide instead of fitted. The actress is very small, so I thought going wide would also help make her look more menacing, with the added addition of helping support the tentacles.

I built a quick pair of pocket hoops using the pattern from Jean Hunnisett’s Period Costumes for Stage and Screen. Thankfully I had enough hooping on hand to make them without ordering anything! I used leftover satin from the dress and some grosgrain ribbon for the boning channels. Instead of making them a separate piece, I sewed them directly into the dress at the waist seam.

Once I had the skirt and pocket hoops installed, I got it hemmed and the zipper in, and the dress was basically done. Then it was time for embellishments. I had the black netting and the purple sparkle mesh to play with… I wasn’t totally sure what I wanted to do. I thought I’d wanted to do some of the purple mesh coming up off the straps around the neck to create a collar… but everytime I tried to put it together it looked SO 80s prom dress. While I thought about that I went back to the skirt… I ended up hanging some of each fabric off each side of the dress, tucking it back and sewing it into place. For the neckline instead of the 80s prom explosion, I did a long piece of the purple at the neckline, hanging down the back, and some of the black netting at the shoulders. I thought it added kind of a fun punk-rock vibe to the dress…. better than 80s prom!

Tentacles:

The tentacles were the fun part! Each one is 3 layers – the top of each tentacle is a layer of black satin, topped with a layer of the black sparkle netting. The underside is the purple vinyl. I made a mock-up out of some scrap cotton, and once I got the length and shape how I wanted, I took it apart to use as a pattern. My husband helped me really tackle these one night – he was cutting on panels, I was pinning them together, then I was sewing them all and he was stuffing them with batting (Luna helped, too.).

Once I had them finished I attached them to a waistband. I did NOT want to attach these directly to the dress – that would just be too heavy for the dress to handle. At first I thought a big piece of elastic would do – but they stretched the elastic too much. So I used a 2in wide piece of black belt webbing. The finished tentacles ended up being too thick to go through my machine – I ended up having to pop the sides of each tentacle open, remove the batting at the top, and THEN machine-sew each one onto the waistband. Once I had them secure, I restuffed the tentacle, and sewed each seam back up.

I used a large hook-and eye at the front of the “belt” piece, and sewed a small flap of the purple vinyl over the top that closes with velcro, just to hide the hook and eye. The built-in pocket hoops of the dress help support the tentacles and keep them sticking out.

Can’t wait to see it on stage!

Everything Else:

So besides Ursula, my mom and I also made all of the mermaid costumes – each mermaid “tail” was a spandex tube skirt with tulle “flippers” and the tops were matching spandex with some big tulle “sleeve” or “cape” things I don’t really know what you’d call them LOL.

And at the last minute, we also tag-teamed a “Kiss the Girl” dress for Ariel. Mom made the skirt and I very quickly banged out a peasant blouse and black corset top. We sewed them all together so it would be one piece for easy changing. We made this one in about 3 days so I’m really proud of it considering how fast it had to be put together!

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