Super mom to the rescue!

When you are 5, your mom can do anything. So when you decide at the 11th hour that you need to be a rose fairy princess MERMAID, you figure that your Super Mom (here after referred to as SM) can make you a tail without any problems. You are far more concerned about how you will need to dive in it. And how to sit on your rock. And that you don't have a vacuum cleaner.

And SM, even though she knows that you really need pants more than a tail, sets aside your clothes in favor of your tail. SM dives into her stash. It is, after all, the 11th hour. A few yards of purple tricot (from the rummage sale that she went to a few years ago) and some tan felt (from some other project that she never got around to last year) later she emerges to consider the problem of a pattern. Hmm. She consults the last measurements she took. She cuts out the stiff felt. Now there is the problem of the tricot. Very, very slippery. SM is probably insane. But wait! Where is that bottle of spray adhesive that she uses when she sticks pattern pieces to slippery fabric? There we go. The tricot is safely attached to the felt, albeit temporarily. The serger comes to the rescue. It is already threaded with purple, since it is, after all, the main SWAP color. One swipe around each piece, and it is time to sew. The front and the back seams are sewn and the whole thing is set aside to try on in the morning.

It fits fine, but you can't walk in it. Or dive in it (not that you know how to dive; they didn't cover that it Young swimmer A). And it is a bit shorter than SM was hoping for (mostly because she cut off some extra in her fatigue challenged sewing the night before). Never fear. SM can figure it out. She adds a section of tricot in the front in a pleat at the top and elastic at the bottom, so it can stretch a bit to walk, but still looks like a tail in the back. A waistband make it long enough that the flippers drag slightly in the back. She even adds pleats to make the fins look more finnish.

Yes. Your feet will show. You do have to walk, after all! If it hadn't been the 11th hour, she might have added sequins or FME'd scales. But, there was the Diego vest that needed to be made too. Well, it probably didn't need bellows pockets, but now SM knows how to make them. It didn't get a hem or the all important but never used zipper. But it is wearable. And since your little brother is Diego daily, SM can finish those parts after she peels off the vest. Maybe during bathtime.