Fish Extender

Disney fans are famous for decorating their hotel rooms and campgrounds, so it seems logical that on a cruise, they'd find some way to decorate their cabin doors.  This one is a prototype for a set that I may be making for guests taking a Disney cruise in January 2013 on the Disney Dream.

Fish Extenders get their names from the fish-shaped hook that is outside cabin doors.  They are initially used by the crew to leave messages, but of course, Disney fans can't just have a hook.  Besides a place for messages, passengers also leave surprise gifts for friends and family.  In case you're interested, this one measures  about 15 5/8 by 8 inches.  My original design was for one much larger, but I noticed from pictures on Google, that the space, in which the fish extender would hang, is not very big.

Our name using nautical flags.

The base, made of black denim, is 17 1/2" x 8".  The pockets are rectangles (11.5" x 10"),  interfaced, and  sewed into 5 inch tubes.  I sewed the edges if each pocket even with the edge of the base.  Since the tube is much longer than the base, I made a pleat about 1/2 inch from the edge so that the bias strip I used to finish the edge, did not catch the pleat.  

I surged the top edge, and folded it over 1 1/2 inches to make the pocket for the rod from which to hang it.  The rod was a small dowel rod with wooden balls glued on.  Of course the rod was too wide for the smaller balls I wanted to use, and was too small for the larger balls I had on hand.  Several layers of duct tape wrapped around the dowel rod before attaching the balls solved that issue.

The bias strips to finish the edges were 1 1/2 inch wide.

I couldn't find white ribbon with red polka dots.  Instead I used plain white ribbon and added tiny dots of red glitter paint for dots before forming the bow.  Works for me!