How to Make Fancy Mermaid Pants!
Hey there, everyone! If you're reading this thread, I'm guessing it's because you have an interest in mermaids and cool pants (don't we all?). I'm sure by now most of us have seen the work by Erika Turunen for The Finnish National Ballet's performance of The Little Mermaid. Her costumes were absolutely stunning! I mean look at them!
When I first saw a photo of them I immediately said to myself: I want a pair. I started doing some research and dug around all over the internet. I was able to find some close-up photos of fabric detail, high res photos I could zoom into to look at the detail, even the fashion sketches! I immediately began to sketch my own concepts and trying to figure out a way I could recreate my own pair of pants.
Buckle up guys, because I'm about to take you through the wild ride I experienced when I made these pants.
[I'll be adding instructional sketches soon I just wanted to get this posted]
What you'll need
Once I had a general idea of what I needed to sew, I gathered my materials.
For my pants, I used:
- A jeggings pants sewing pattern
- 1 yard of pre-sequined fabric
- 1 yard of shiny light blue chiffon
- 1 yard of malt dark blue tulle
- 1 yard of malt light blue tulle
- 1/2 yard of a sparkly dark blue tulle
- Large sequins that matched my pre-sequined fabric
- 1 thick elastic band
- Scrap paper
- Needle
- Thread
- Scissors
- Fabric pins
- Measuring tape
- A ton of patience
Before we begin, note that not all materials are required but these are just all the things I used for this project. Fabric lengths were approximate for me. Some people may need more or less fabric depending on your measurements. If you don't have a sewing machine, don't worry because I didn't when I made these pants. It is entirely possible to hand sew these pants. It just takes much longer.
If you're looking for pre-sequined fabric, I ordered mine from Cali Fabrics. You can find my specific fabric here: [link] or you can just browse their sequin fabric here: [link] I know their fabric is good and not a cheap knock off fabric but if you want to test your luck, I also found a store on Amazon that also sells pre-sequined dangle fabric: [link]. I've never bought from that Amazon store so I have no idea what to expect but it's less expensive than the Cali Fabrics fabric.
Getting started
The first thing you're going to need is a sewing pattern. While I couldn't find the original one I used, I was able to find a similar one to it here: [link]
I highly recommend a jeggings pattern. The pattern takes into account the lack of stretch in the fabric while keeping the pattern more simple than jeans. If you don't want pockets in your pants, you can just continue the pattern past the jeans seam and ignore it.
[image of ignoring pockets in jeans]
Once you get your pattern, follow the pattern's instructions on finding what size you are and cut that size out. For the sequined upper half of the pants, you're going to want the fabric to end just past the knees. Make sure you cut your pattern so it's no longer ankle length, but knee length.
[image for cutting the pattern short]
Sewing the top half together
After you have all your fabric pieces cut out, follow the pattern instructions and sew it all together. Because of the randomness of the sequins, I would not recommend using a sewing machine unless you're brave and have a heavy duty needle. Sewing this thing by hand was difficult with a regular needle. Sequins got in my way every other stitch! I can't imagine how hard it'd be with a machine!
Once you finish sewing the upper half of the pants, make sure to add a waist band in so your pants don't fall down!
Making the fluke
Now you're going to want to lay your pants flat and put some scrap paper underneath it. Draw a line from left to right where the leg ends.
[scrap paper and line for pants]
This is going to be the width of where your fluke begins. Once you get the width down, measure from the bottom of your knee to your heel. This is going to be the length of your pants (unless you want it to be even longer). Now all that's left is how much flare you want your pants to have.
[flare sketch]
Cut out a couple of layers of fabric with that pattern (I did 4) and attach them onto the ends of the pants.
[attach sketch]
Finishing touches
Next, you're going to need to take some more scrap paper and draw 3 different scale sizes: small, medium, and large. These are going to be fabric in the shape of a scale to help ease the transition between sequins and fabric. Cut out a ton of those fabric scales in various sizes. Starting from the largest to the smallest, begin to attach them to the rest of the garment. Once they're attached, congratulations! You're done with fabric! Now it's time to revisit those sequins again.
Pull out that bag of larger sequins. You have a choice of either hand sewing them onto the fabric or gluing them using E6000. Both will work (but E6000 is a little faster) You're going to sew/ glue (your choice) the sequins onto the line where the fluke and the body meet starting from the bottom up. I did 3 full rows and some sequins scattered here and there randomly to help smooth the transition.
Once that's done, admire your pants because YOU'RE DONE! WOO! Now you've got awesome mermaid pants!
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