Peacock Costume, Part 1

I'm going to be a peacock for Halloween this year, and I wanted to make my own costume.  I think it's going to be pretty cool, though I have absolutely no experience with costume-making. I'm going to do my best to make it so that the tail will open and close.  With that said, here's a step-by-step following what I did:

You'll need:

Peacock feathers (I used about 50 just for the tail)

A blue dress/outfit

Hot glue gun

Fabric (I used about 2 yds total)

Scissors

Wrapping paper (optional, but helpful)

Fabric marker/chalk

Sewing machine

Lay out some peacock feathers in a single layer to form a fan shape. These will be the outer-most/longest feathers forming the tail.  It should be symmetrical.

The stems of your feathers won't line up this nicely because they haven't been trimmed yet. So, trim them! But first, be sure the tail is the right size for you. An easy way to do this is to take the center feather and hold the stem of it up to your body, where your tail would start.  Make sure the end of the feather doesn't drag on the ground.

Then, when you go to trim the stems, make the shortest feathers on each side the same length. You want the feathers to be as symmetrical as possible; since the feathers aren't uniform in terms of shape, you can at least make them the same length. Once trimmed, the feathers should all meet at a central point, like in the above photo.

Next, lay a sheet of wrapping paper over the feathers and cut it into a sort of rounded triangular shape. We left an extra strip of fabric extending out to the end of the tail in case we needed to add support, but cut it off later, so you can ignore that part.

Yours should be more like a triangle, with rounded corners.  This will be the stencil for your fabric, where you're going to attach the feathers.

After you've done this, leave everything in place and start to build the second layer of feathers on top of the current layer.  Do it the same way as the previous layer, except the feathers will all be a little shorter.

You might also want to trim the feathers so that they don't meet at a central point, but rather create a small arc.  If all of the feathers on all of the layers meet at the same point, you'll end up with a lot of bulk at that point.  You will also want to stagger the feathers so that they are in between the previous layer (again, less bulk); try to keep the symmetry consistent.
Here's a detail of the first two layers:

Lay down another sheet of wrapping paper and draw out a stencil for the next piece of fabric. This piece should be the same shape but slightly smaller than the previous piece of fabric.

The shape shown in the above picture is pretty ideal - rounded triangle.  Your first layer of fabric should be a similar shape (again, without the extra strip of fabric going to the tip of the tail).

Finally, put the third layer of feathers down on top and follow the same directions as you did for the previous layer. You'll want to continue to trim the feathers shorter, stagger them, and cut the next piece of fabric a little smaller.

Do this (cut paper, layer staggered feathers) one more time, with tiny peacock feathers.

(tiny feathers not shown...)

Our next steps will be to cut and hem the fabric, then to hot glue the feathers to the fabric and attach all of the layers together!
Note that nothing I've done here has been very precise. It will mostly be covered up or overshadowed by the flashy-ness of the feathers.  Plus, it's a Halloween costume.  If you're a better seamstress or are more neurotic, you'll probably want to tidy up some of the stencils and maybe even measure the feathers to ensure symmetry.

Part 2 will be coming soon (as well as a photo of the completed project)!