My daughter spent the week before Christmas walking around with a pad, writing her list for Ho ho and the Mermaid. On asking who the mermaid was I was told she was a friend, she was coming to tea, we didn't have a name or an address. Our friend the mermaid has popped up a few times since Christmas and friends of ours found a mermaid bath toy which went down a treat.
So with an upcoming birthday this weekend I thought I would tackle the free pattern for a mermaids tail blanket on Made for Mermaids. She has other things that look fun too but that's for another day.
I had a nice spotty fleece I had bought from MyFabrics a few years back with the intention of using it for a blanket, only I ended up using a lilac fleece instead. This I decided would be good for the main body piece. The left over lilac would be the tail and the top. However when I came to it I found I didn't have the required amount of lilac so I decided to wing it. I had enough for the width but I had to make the cuff thinner, as for the tail end I folded the fabric to allow the biggest piece possible and cut a tail shape free hand. I used the suggested amount of fleece for the main section and trimmed it down to fit the tail in a similar fashion to the pattern but again I winged it. ;)
It's too long to get a good picture of here but she is in the other room.
Sewing it together was really easy and fuss free. I opted not to sew the scale effect on mine as the lilac fleece is quite thin and I didn't want to wreck it but I topstitched around the tail and also around the cuff to main body just because I could really.
It turns out the suggested amount of fabric makes a massive blanket and this is the small size however that just means lots of growing room. All in all as a mostly winged but based on pattern I was really pleased with this project and it didn't take too long at all to sew. I just hope the little mermaid fan is happy when she opens it this weekend.
