My general plan was for Maui's costume to be a shirt and shorts base with a leafy skirt and other accoutrements over top. I used the Beachcomber Shorts from Peek-a-boo Pattern Shop and the Bookworm Button Up from Blank Slate Patterns. Both of which I have used recently for Sprogs Star Wars Shorts, and Widget's Bob the Builder and Pirate shirts.
For fabric, I went to our local emporium where I knew they had tapa cloth styled cotton in multiple cotton. I hoped for tan and red, and ended up with brown and red. The red was for Moana, In addition I found a large green/blue broach style button for The Heart of Te Fiti (I really really want to spell that the Te Reo Maori way of Te Whiti), a white shell coloured beading with silver ferns on it, a plastic "grass" skirt, and some plastic sacking like material. I'm not really sure what it is.
For the Maui costume I bought some large squares of felt in an off-white/bone colour, and some green weed mat, which would be the basis for Maui's leaf skirt, but supplemented with green scraps from my stash.
Maui
I started Maui with a shorts and shirt combo to act as the base.
The shirt was adapted. Firstly, I didn't do the collar, but included the collar stand for a Mandarin neckline. The front was cut on the fold instead of in two pieces. I still cut one placket piece as per the pattern and used it on a half placket for a pull over the head shirt. Pockets and sleeve details were left off. Sprog was so pleased with it he wore just this part of the costume as much as he could all weekend.
Next up was the leafy modesty skirt. I cut a variety of leaves from the weed mat I hat bought, and leftover scraps. In three stages I layered these and sewed them onto a belt of elastic 60mm wide and slightly less than Sprog's waist circumference. The first stage was large cloth leaves, in case he decides to just wear the "leaves" at some point to make it more comfortable against the skin.
Maui's accessory is his hook. After sketching with tailors chalk I cut out a hook shape, then used the leftover from the middle of the hook to fashion a handle. On the handle I sewed straight lines with tan thread to distinguish it from the action part of the hook. When sewing up the hook before turning it inside out I was careful to leave a gap on the inside of the hook. Pulling the whole length of the felt hook through the narrow end wouldn't leave me able to push the barb points out.Very carefully, and using a zipper foot I attached the handle part to the hook part then started stuffing. For a stiff hook it was necessary to have it very tightly packed. This hook is going to be swung about a lot by small people so it needs to be robust. Any weakness in the stuffing would allow a bend in the hook. There is still one small weak spot I am not happy with, but short of opening it up again I'm not sure I can get rid of it. I hand-stitched the close in two stages to get tight packing. The final step was to wrap the handle with twine to give it a bit more of a Maui look. I stitched the twine down then wrapped it around up the handle, and then back down again, securing at the seam lines using the hot glue gun.
Maui also wears a necklace of what I assume to be trophies, shark's teeth and the like. Sprog went to the beach with a friend and came back with some shells, one of which was perfect for a necklace.
And it was done!Moana
Moana was easy to envisage but harder to execute. It's in three main parts, the top, the skirt, and the necklace.For the top I wanted to have a shirred bodice for comfort, with a top section folded over for the beading. I ran into trouble when I couldn't get the tension right on my machine to use the elastic shirring thread. Flag that, Plan B was to use wide elastic to get a snug yet flexible fit. I put a section of elastic in the back between the two sides, then left the excess to 'wave in the wind'/be tied together as Widget wishes. On the front I attached two flounces each with a row of silver fern beading handsewn along the edge of the flounce.
A section of the cloth was doubled over and sewn shut with curved ends to tie over the top of the skirt.
The skirt was easier in execution. I folded the weird sacking material on the angle to mimic Moana's skirt in the picture then layered the folded line with the 'grass' skirt and some cotton, then slowly attached the three together. The cotton layer was simply to make it more comfortable on bare legs. Slowly because every time I went fast I broke a needle. Then I checked against Widget and marked the length for once around his waist and attached velcro in two places, one at the end and the other one waist circumference away. Once attached I cut the sacking material shorter, shaped it with points, and used a single punch tool to punch holes in it. When I tried it on Widget he had trouble getting it to stay up. Little boys have no hips. I solved this with a pair of shortened Junior Joggers (Peekaboo patterns), with an extra wide yoga waistband and a strip of velcro on the front of the pants, and the inside of the skirt.
The last accessory for Widget was Moana'a necklace with the heart of Te Fiti (Whiti!). I removed many of the ferns from a length of the trim I put on the front of the bodice then interwove it with three lengths of cord, halfway down feeding two of the cords passed through the back of the broach/button. I hot glued the back of the button to ensure it would hang the right way up
