Grace and Dolly Under the Sea

The summer days are slowly disappearing.  It's not the heat that dissipates.  It's the hot, dry days of Indian Summer that come along.  And the draining of the lake I hike around every morning, and often kayak in.  Little islands begin to surface and the areas where I paddled my kayak freely, become homes once again to a variety of wildlife.  While good for the two and four-footed creatures, it's a sadness that is keenly felt by me.  Don't get me wrong.  I LOVE autumn, but the cooler days do not arrive until late October.  It's simply a noticeable change of season.

August has traditionally been the time for families to travel on holiday.  That was something of generations past.  People took to the road and traveled to have adventures and a change of pace and scenery.  And one of the things we always did was go to the beach.  I've had a fascination with the ocean and sea life for as long as I can remember.  And stories, dreams of mermaids lasted long into the years.

August has often been the time when I post a daily illustration of mermaids and beach scenes to my Facebook page.  This year I've concentrated on travel and destinations.  Places where you heart can soar and your soul can heal. 

This August, Rachel and Diana chose The Little Mermaid as their Club Grace theme.  I wasn't sure initially, how I would approach it.  They'd done a mermaid costume one Halloween - and that was before my Dolly Dingle was on the scene.  Diana had drawn a Flounder in the illustration, and I bought a toy Flounder for the display.  Playing Club Grace has taken on a life of its own since I had Dolly Dingle made by Connie Zink.  And this month's theme inspired me rather quickly once I gave it a good think.  I loved the 1989 version and Sebastian was my favorite character.

Some people remember the movie for the song Arial sang about wishing she could be part of their world.  For me it was Under the Sea with Sebastian as the leader of the Hot Crustacean Band.  It was cute and silly and catchy and made me feel wonderful.  A Rastafarian crab.  Go figure!  Move over Bob Marley!  "We got no troubles, Life is dee bubbles!"  "Each little slug here, Cuttin' a rug here under the sea!"

I popped my DVD into the player and watched the movie one more time.  So much I'd forgotten!  So much I remembered.  Hey!  It was research.  Research is a good thing, and "Darlin' its better, Down where its wetter...", under the sea. (Mulan is my other very favorite by the way.)

From the video introduction of August's Club Grace, Rachel indicated that she'd longed for the dress Arial wore when she took her first carriage ride through the town that surrounded Prince Eric's castle.  I was also delighted to once again see the music score where

Eric takes Ariel for a rowboat ride and the land and sea life encourage him to "kiss the girl".  What's interesting is that even before I rewatched the movie, I'd decided on what costumes Dolly Dingle and Remmie Lou would wear.  It simply gave me more inspiration and ideas for accessories.

The funny thing is that the animated drawings I researched on the Internet were no-two-alike.  The colors were always changing, as well as the number of tentacles Ursula had.  I sat there and counted.  We all know the octopus has eight tentacles or legs.

And those little suction cups are called suckers.  But how was I going to create this costume for the 10" chubby Dolly Dingle?  She is NOT easy to sew for.  No matter how many costumes I make for her, each is unique and a challenge.

In viewing the drawings of Ursula, I felt that a thin, black cotton velveteen was the right fabric for the costume.  I almost chose black silk as it was shiny and would look wet, like "under the sea".  Silk has its own challenges, like fraying.  I solve that little issue with Fray Check, but that would require a lot of time.  

And why Ursula for Dolly?  Because every sweet little girl wants to play a badass once in a while.  And, hey!  It would be a challenge.  

After looking through many versions of Ursula, this was the image I liked best.  I decided not to make Jetsom and Flotsam.  That would have required many days of needle felting.  As it was, if you're reading this, Rachel, this collection took me several days to make.  When I think of how long it takes me to make a costume...well, a lot of the work is done in my head and in research, which alone, can take several days.  I seldom just jump into a project unless it's obvious and I have all the materials required.

Conniving little Moray Eels aside, Ursula is great character.  

Dolly as Ursula.

There were a couple of ways to approach the costume.  One was to make it all one piece with "legs" coming off of the bodice.  The other was to make each leg separately and sew them all onto the hem of bodice.  This was the way I chose to do it out of pattern design ease.  

Since Dolly already had two legs, all I needed to make was six!

So, I made six velveteen tentacles lined with purple silk.  Do you enjoy seeing costumes, or projects in the works?  I do because it shows me how something is done for future reference.  

The bodice is lined in black silk and the tentacle ends that are attached to the bodice are hidden beneath the hand hemming of the black lining.

I had some strong and very thin floral wire that I used to give the tentacles the ability to be bent into a curly shape.  I used poly stuffing to give them body and shape.

The last touch to the tentacles was hand sewing on a lighter colored sequin to resemble the suckers.  Two rows would do it on each.  In person, it's very sparkly and pretty, but the photos don't show this well.

I did needle felt the gold snail shell Ursula wears around her neck to capture Ariel's lovely voice.

Her crown, which was actually King Triton's and her trident are gold foil covered cardboard.  Three layers to give them strength.  

Dolly wears a pair of black tights beneath the costume and that's how the eight tentacles were done.

This close up hopefully shows the bling the sequin suckers create.

I also intended for the tentacles with their strong wire to help Dolly stand on her own.  But her feet are not flat on the ground.  That's just a feature of the mold her body was created from.  

Of course, we couldn't forget to dress Remmie Lou.

As I mentioned, Sebastian was my favorite character.  The poor little crab who was charged to keep an eye on the wayward teenage mermaid who desired to become human and win the love of Prince Eric.  

For those who haven't bothered looking this up, Sebastian was a Tropical Ghost Crab.  I just looked that up myself.  How does Disney do this?  Sebastian is just too much!  And trying to make a crab costume for a dog was no easy trick.  I'm not even sure I succeeded, but I gave it my best shot.

What can I say?

Okay, we needed big crab claws.  That was a start.  I used my wonderful Felt Pod felted wool for the costume.  I made the claws to fit over the front paws and I swear they look more like oven mitts but there you go.  It's a DOG COSTUME!  

I created a sort of open face mask to give the impression of Sebastian's lumpy eye sockets and his big lower lip.  Then I embroidered little emphasis lines close to the eyes.

The crab's shell is one little piece that ties around and under Remmie's tummy.  I stretched and worked the wool to give it a crab shell shape. 

Now Remmie Lou can scoot along the bottom of the sea keeping an eye on the troublesome mermaid in her charge.  Maybe I should have included a conductor's baton to lead that Hot Crustacean Band!

Ariel combing her tresses with the dinglehopper.

Finding a small enough fork for Ariel's dinglehopper wasn't difficult to do.  The fork is simply a little jewelry finding; an inexpensive charm.  Sure, I had to buy 30 of them, but no biggie.  Scale is everything to me.

Here she is combing her hair.  The wig?  Well, it's one that I had on hand.  It has that full, lovely look of Ariel's flowing tresses.

Let's ask Scuttle what this is!

Lastly, and I mean last night, I remembered that something was missing.  Ariel's pink treasure sack.

So, before the last rays of sunlight left my studio for taking photos, I whipped up this little pink silk sack in 15 minutes.  

I actually had a blast making this collection to go with Grace's Club Grace Ariel dress.  Just watching the movie again was a joy.  I may just watch it one more time before all is said and done.  

I know I've mentioned this in the past, but August has often been a slow month for me in my studio.  Lately it's been next to impossible to find time to play in there.  The reasons are boring, but reality.  However, when a new Club Grace comes out, everything else gets set aside and time is made so that I can play Club Grace with the other collectors and enthusiasts out there.

"Each little snail here, Know how to wail here, That's why its hotter under the water, Ya' we in luck here, Down in the muck here under the sea!"