ugly duckling costume

My sons school is doing the musical production of Shrek Jr. When I volunteered to be on the costume committee I had no idea what I was getting myself into. What I found was that one I really love to sew and two I really enjoy creating something from nothing with just my own vision and inspiration!

This was my inspiration for this concept.

One of the costumes we need is for the Ugly duckling. We spent a couple weeks brainstorming and researching this. Ultimately it came down to that this is an Ugly Duckling and is different from the rest of the ducklings and is cast out. What I then saw was a take on feathers that utilized left over scraps of fabric to achive a feather look. From previous years plays we had a ton of scrap fabric.

1. I used a base of black felt and I cut a half circle shape.

2. Then cut the sides at an angle and reversed them, puting the longer edge on the outside. This made it look more like wings and they hung down further in the front.

3. I then cut many, I mean many!!!! ....feathers out of fabric. All different colors and the key is different textures for dimension. tip: I folded pieces of fabric two to three times and used my rotary cutter to get more at one time.

4. I then used seam tape and an iron to temporarily secure the feathers to the felt. Some feathers/fabric would not handle the heat of the iron so I pinned or used a glue gun.

5. Once I had a section of feather placed I sewed in rows the feathers into place. This is for a play so I did not want any pieces falling out on stage.

6. As you can imagine the weight got pretty heavy so I ditched the full lining and went with just the wings where I also added feathers on the bottom half of the inside.

7. I finished it off with a soft velvet piece around the neck for comfort.

8. Added elastic to for the wrists and a ribbon to tie it by the neck.

9. Super cute!!!