My Cute Little Sebastian

Right before Christmas our kindergarten kids had their audition for the spring Operetta. They do this every year, and my kids usually get some random dancing part. That is likely because most of my girls didn't speak during their entire kindergarten year!

Imagine our surprise when Curly came home with the coveted role of Sebastian in the Little Mermaid! Not only was it a speaking role, but he also gets to sing a solo! We were totally shocked. Then came the call for volunteers.

Well, of course I felt guilty enough that I had to volunteer to make his costume. We started looking for a red sweat outfit and some mittens. You know, red is NOT the color of choice this year.

After half a dozen stores and a perusal of Amazon, I was pretty discouraged. Then one night my sweetie and I were in WalMart. We had some other things on our list, so he offered to look for the red stuff while I looked for something else. As it worked out, we were both going through the clothing when he came up with this cute red velour sweat outfit. It was VERY reasonable, about eight bucks for the pants and the jacket so being the brilliant engineer that he is, he brought me two sets, one to use for the base of the costume and the other to cut up for the various parts I would need to add.

Now I know that sounds like a wonderful idea, but it actually caused me a ton of grief! Who knew that I would have such strong feelings about cutting up something brand new and serviceable? It was hard!! By the time I finally convinced myself it would be OK, the costume was almost due.

But let me tell you how I made this little red sweat outfit look like an adorable costume. First I free-handed a simple pattern for the extra legs. I knew they couldn't be any wider than the legs of the pants since that is the fabric I had to use to cut them. I pinned the paper piece near the bottom hem and then I waited to make the first slice. After about 20 minutes I could justify the delay no longer. (After that first cut it was much easier. Then I already knew the pants had been destroyed.)

Then I free-handed a pattern for some extra long mittens. I wanted them to look like pincers but when I was finished cutting them I knew they would need something to stiffen them up. I found a thin quilt batting lying around, but it could have been done with a piece of fleece or even foam rubber.

My sweetie was a big help with the "shell." He spray painted a large WalMart bowl red, inside and out. It was finally time to bring together all the pieces. I sewed and flipped the legs and then stuffed them with polyfil. Then I unpicked the side seams of the jacket and sewed them in. For a less finished look they could easily have been sewn on top.

Then I sewed the mittens together, two pieces of red and two pieces of lining. I turned them and make a small hem at the wrist. Did I mention how hard it was to cut those mittens out of the remaining jacket???

The last piece of the puzzle was to attach the bowl to the costume. My sweetie bought me some red sticky back Velcro at the Home Depot. I attached it to the bowl and the shirt and then I asked Curly to try it on. He was so excited!

Unfortunately, I was not the one to help him take it off and Scout simply pulled at the bowl rather than unfastening the Velcro and she pulled the entire piece off the jacket. I decided the only way to prevent that from happening again would be to sew in this sticky back Velcro to the actual costume. That was easier said than done.

My needle kept gumming up and I went though four of them before I was finished. It just took way longer than it should have, but when it was finally finished, even a hard pull would not dislodge the Velcro.

Then just one last ingredient. Add one cute little guy with an awesome voice and you've got it, a ready-made Sebastian

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