Octonauts Costumes and DIY Sailor’s Hat

The Disney Jr. show, Octonauts, is a favorite in our house. So it was no surprise to me that our little ones choose to be Kwazi the cat and the polar bear Captain Barnacles for Halloween. There are not commercial costumes for these characters, but lucky for my two, I love any DIY challenge.

An orange shirt and pants were the base of the Kwazi outfit. Felt triangles were attached to a headband for the ears. My little guy made sure I even cut a tiny chomp in one of the ears just like Kwazi’s.The eye patch was also felt. This worked great for a 3 year old because he was able to shift it slightly to see while still maintaining the pirate look. I used felt for the tummy and collar. The tail was a awesome find from the dollar store.

To make the hat, I drew the pattern for the main portion of it on the fold of a piece of paper. Next, I traced it on to felt and cut out four equal pieces. The rounded triangles are about 4 inches wide and 5 inches tall. Assume a 1/2 inch seam allowance.

Then, I pinned the pieces side by side together and sewed them to form this cone like shape.

To make the brim of the hat, I cut a strip of felt 15 inches long and 3 inches high. The dark blue piece was cut for the stripe around the hat. It measures 15 inches long and only 1/2 inch high.

With the cone still inside out, I attached the brim to the hat with pins.

Using a sewing machine, they were sewed together.

To hem the hat, I turned the whole thing right side out. I folded the edge up, pinned and sewed.

After that, I folded the brim up.  That’s when it starting looking like a hat.

Finally, using my trusty hot glue gun, I attached the stripe and the Octonauts logo. (The Logo, I found here and printed it out on printable fabric.)

This hat could work for so many different costumes, without the Octonauts logo of course. With different fabric it could make a cute hat to accessorize a sailor’s costume.

A little blue sweat suite is what I snagged at Target for Captain Barnacles.  His belt and collar I cut out of blue felt. His Octonauts hat was a much more complicated variation of the Kwazi hat. I’ll spare you the frustrating details of making that one. Using a white hat we already had, I attached two felt half circles with safety pins for the ears.

 

The boots for both costumes are their winter boots I covered with, you guessed it, more felt. I took two pieces of felt pinned them together along the outside and hot glued them. Once dry, I flipped them right side out and slid them back onto footwear.

Although it was a lot of work to get these costumes together for my boys, I am very pleased with how they turned out and more importantly, so are they.