This year, our 3 year old Kierian chose Octonauts as our theme. I made several of the characters. See below a table of contents of sorts to help you easily get to the one you are interested in.

Professor Inkling: Step 1-6

Peso: Step 7-8

Kwazii: Step 9

Captain Barnacles: Step 10

Tweak: Step 11

Dashi: Step 12

Basic Hat: step 6

Sailor Hat: step 8

Supplies

Here is a list of supplies you will need:

Reference photos

Sewing machine/ needle for hand sewing

Thread in matching colors to your fabrics

Fleece fabric in the color of your character

Blue fabric for the sailor hat

White fabric for the sailor hat PESO ONLY

Fabric or craft foam for details

Scissors

Liquid stitch

Fusible interfacing (captain barnacles, professor inkling)

Wire, pliers, wire cutters (professor inkling and tweak)

Stuffing

Patterns for your character

SVG files for cutting Octonauts emblem found on this step:

files named patchA and patchB are the original files I made. They include several standard emblems and the

captain's emblem. The boardering white circle I found to be too narrow so I created the following files to make the

boarder thicker.

files named patchAsingle and patchBsingle are the ones you need for the standard emblem
file named patchAlargesingle is the thicker white boarder for Captain's emblem.

Step 1: Professor Inkling

Kierian loves sea animals and Octonauts. He decided which character everyone would be. He chose Professor Inkling for himself. This is for sure the most difficult of the whole group to make. It took the most thinking and trial and error.

You need

Pink fleece

White fleece

Blue fabric for the bow

Darker pink, white, black, and blue for details on face.

Stuffing

Wire, cutters, and pliers

Step 2: Making Pattern and Starting Shirt

The pattern for this part is too big to fit on a normal sheet of paper like all the rest of the patterns I used so it's hard to make it simple for you and just post a printable version.

To make your own, get a long sleeve shirt of the person who will wear the costume and a roll of paper.

Fold the shirt in half and try to fold the sleeve back to the seam.

Trace the shirt on the paper.

Since the arms are 2 of the tentacles, I thought it looked weird if the rest of the tentacles were as low as the bottom of the shirt so I ended the shirt just below the arms. Add seam allowance to the shoulders and under the arms.

Then draw out 3 tentacles at the bottom of the shirt. The arms are 2 of the 8 and then 3 on front and 3 on back.

Then trace the arm of the shirt. I rounded off the end so the material would cover the hand and look more like a tentacle. Add a seam allowance all around.

The pattern in the picture after the shirt pattern is the bottom of the tentacle. I traced the tentacle shape and then gave it a large border and a large bulge at the top. This bulge is used to cover the wire that will be run in the tentacles where it meets the shirt.

Trace your patterns on your fabric. You need 2 arm pieces, 6 tentacle pieces, and 2 body pieces. Then cut them all out. The tentacle pieces will be used in the next step.

Fold the arm in half, lining up the edge with wrong sides out. Pin and sew along the long edge. Stop near the rounded off end so there is room to put the hand through. Repeat with other arm. Turn inside out.

Line up the 2 body pieces with wrong sides out. Pin. Sew along the top where the shoulders are. Sew the sides under the arm holes.

Sew sleeves on. This is a little tricky and hard to explain without pictures(which I don't have) Grab your body section and one sleeve. You need to insert the sleeve into the body through the arm opening, small end first. This way the large opening can be aligned with the arm hole. *The body is still oriented with the sewed edges facing out but the sleeve is oriented with the right side facing out.* Pin the sleeve to the arm opening and sew. When finished, reach in and pull the sleeve out. Now both the sleeve and the body are oriented with the sewed edges facing out. Repeat with the remaining sleeve.

I didn't like how the gaps between tentacles looked so I cute small rectangles of fabric and sewed them over the gaps.

Turn the body right side out.

*I also sewed a strip along the head opening but this is NOT needed as you sew a white collar later.

Step 3: Tentacles

I ran wire through all the tentacles so they could be positioned as we liked. For this, you need channels along each tentacle to slide the wire in so the wire stays in place. Refer to the photos for sizing, but basically just draw a long, thin rectangle.

Pin the channels on each tentacle piece and sew the sides and bottom. Leave the top open.

Now make sure your body is turned right side out. Line up the edges of the tentacle piece (channel side up) to the edges of a tentacle on the body. The tentacle piece is much larger than the body tentacle. This is on purpose to allow for more stuffing. So just align the edges, helps to fold the excess up in the middle to help align the edges.

Sew around the tentacle, leave the buldge at the top open. Repeat with the rest of the tentacles.

Turn tentacles right side out. This will put the buldge on the inside of the body.

Step 4: Wire

This is by far the trickiest part.

Start off by cutting a piece of wire more than double the length of the channel. The wire will be folded in half to make it stronger and still stick out of the channel a ways. (See photos) this excess will be used to twist with the excess wire from the next tentacle. All the tentacles will be joined this way, making a ring of wire like a hoop that goes around the person's chest.

I put the body upside down over a chair back to work on this part. Stuff each tentacle to your liking.

Slide a wire into each channel folded end down.

Split the wire that is sticking out so that one end goes to each side. Do this for all. Then twist the ends with the ends of the neighboring tentacle meeting them. Use the pliers to help bend the wire. When you are done, the wire should be hoop. Be careful to bend the very ends back on themselves to prevent any sharp ends poking the wearer. Also make sure you have enough wire that your hoop will fit over the wearer's head and shoulders.

Now is pretty much a hack job. Fold the bulge over the wire and pin. There should be enough fabric there to overlap with the next tentacle's fabric and cover all the wire while sealing off the tentacle. Hand sew all this in place. First sew the sides of the bulges to the next bulge over. Then sew close to the wire, there will be a lot of excess fabric at the top of the bulges. When it's all sewn, cut off all the excess.

Step 5: Collar and Bow

Here is a nice video made by someone else I found on YouTube to make the bow.

The collar is just a very long rectangle of white fleece. Fold it over all around the head hole and pin. Then sew on. Cut off any excess and sew the end.

Then sew on the bow in the middle.

Step 6: Inkling Hat

I searched for beanie patterns online and found this page: https://www.madeformermaids.com/beanies/

I found the smallest hat to be too small so I used the medium size for him. He is almost 4 but on the small size.

Trace the hat pattern on your fabric. Align the side of the pattern on a fold in the fabric so you will end up with a whole that is exactly the same on both sides. You need 2 of these.

Trace and cut out 4 ears. Trace 2 with the pattern face up and 2 with it facedown.

Pair them up: 1 of each. Align them with right sides in. Pin and sew around the ear, leaving the flat side open. Turn inside out and stuff.

Now we need to prepare the hat and ears together. Lay one hat piece right side up. Place your ears where you want them and then flip them over the edge of the hat into the center. The ears should be laying on the hat piece with the flat open side lined up with the edge of the hat. Then take the 2nd hat piece, right side down, and place on top. Line up the edges and pin. Be careful to keep the ears in place. Make sure the edge of the ear is at or extending past the edge of the hat so when you sew it, you don't miss the ear in the seam.

Sew along the curve. Leave the V shape at the top open and, of course, the bottom open.

Open the hat and lay flat with the seams you just made on top and bottom so that the V shapes are now a straightish line across the top of the hat. Pin and sew along that line.

Fold the bottom edge of the hat up to make a nice hem. Sew.

Turn hat right side out.

Cut out all the detail patterns. Trace the big circle on black, the little circle and the mouth on white. Cut the nose off of the mouth pattern and trace the nose on dark pink. Cut different sized small circles/ovals out of dark pink. Draw a monocle on the blue fabric and cut out.

Use liquid stitch to glue the white circle on the black to make the eye and glue the nose on the mouth piece. Place everything on the hat where you like and glue it all in place.

Complete the costume with black shirt and pants.

Step 7: Peso

For Peso, follow the hat instructions from step 6, only Peso has no ears to add so it's easier.

Our Peso is for a 1 year old so the belly pattern is small. We also used the small hat pattern.

Trace the big circle on black, small one on white, and the beak on orange. Trace the face pattern on white fleece.

Use a black marker to draw on the detail on the beak.

Then use the liquid stitch to glue the white circle on the black for the eye.

Sew the white face on Peso and then glue the eyes and beak in place.

Follow the steps on the next page to make the sailor hat. Then stuff the sailor hat to keep it rounded. Place on the top of Peso's head and pin in place. Hand sew the sailor hat on.

Buy a black long sleeved shirt. Trace the belly pattern on white fleece and cut out. Place on shirt and sew. Complete the costume with black pants. I wanted to make penguin feet for him too but time got away from us.

Step 8: Sailor Hat

I found this handy video on how to sew a sailor hat on youtube. It is helpful to have a video to explain and show how to do it.

First fold your fabric so you have enough room to trace all the patterns you need. Trace the long part of the pattern with the edge labeled fold lined up on the fold of the fabric. Trace 3 of the triangles. Cut out all the pieces. You should have 6 triangle pieces and 1 long curved rectangle piece.

As in the video, keep the rectangle piece folded and sew the short side. Sit aside.

Line up 2 triangles one on top of the other. Sew one of the long sides. Open it up. Line up a 3rd triangle on top of one of the previous and sew the long side to make a chain of 3 triangles. Watch the video to get a clearer idea of this part.

Do the same with the other 3 triangles.

Then line up the 2 strings of triangles and sew the remaining 2 sides to make the bowl of the hat.

Add the brim. Stick the bowl of the hat into the brim through the inner curve. The edge of the bowl of the hat should be lined up with the inner curve of the brim. Pin and sew. Again, the video is immensely helpful.

Hem the brim by folding over the edge on itself and sewing.

For the Octonauts symbol, I made SVG files and cut them out on my Glowforge on craft foam. Cut the full circle out on blue and the octopod design on white. I used adhesive foam for the white so you just have to peel and stick the design on the blue circle.

As you can see in the pictures, the white ring around the circle in the original file was way too thin. It was hard to handle, didn't stick well, and didn't look good. I made a new, thicker one and replaced them all.

I used liquid stitch to attach the symbol to the hat. Then stuff the bowl of the hat, place on the character hat and sew.

Step 9: Kwazii

Follow the same steps in Step 6 to make the character hat and Step 8 to make the sailor hat.

The patterns for kwazii's face details are included on this step. I didn't have the right color fabric for the inner ears and mouth so I used craft foam instead.

The rest of the body is orange if you can find orange pants.

Step 10: Captain Barnacles

Follow the same steps in Step 6 to make the character hat and Step 8 (with a few changes) to make the sailor hat.

The character hat steps are the same as for the previous characters. The sailor hat is different since he is the captain. The only change there is the brim.

Trace the same triangle pattern as before so you have 6 of them and sew them the same as step 8.

The brim: Trace the pattern labeled Barnacles hat twice. There is a second page of patterns here that has an extra piece of this hat, line up the pattern with the side of one of the traced hat patterns and trace the addition. You should have one piece that is just the captain's front part and one piece that has a brim attached to it.

Cut out a piece of interfacing to fit the piece with the brim and iron it on the back.

Line up the other hat piece on top of the of the piece with the brim, right sides facing, and sew it on, leaving the bottom edge open. Turn it right side out to put the interfacing on the inside. Sew the bottom.

Now insert the bowl of the hat in the brim just like the regular sailor hat and sew. Fold over the hem and sew. Turn right side out.

Attach the hat the same way as previously written.

Captain Barnacles is supposed to have a belt as well, but I didn't have time to make one. The rest of the body is white.

Step 11: Tweak

Tweak is a little more complicated than the others. Since her ears are so long, I needed to add a wire frame to hold them up and to allow for posing if desired. I apologize for the lack of pictures to help explain this all.

Trace and cut out the ear patterns. Line them up one of top of the other in pairs, right sides together and sew, leaving the bottom edge open. Turn inside out. Stuff.

Trace the hat pattern, cut out, and line up one on top the other, right sides together. Arrange the ears on the hat to get the placement right and make a mark on each side of each ear on the hat and remove ears. Sew the hat as in Step 6, only skip the ear holes. Set aside.

Get the wire and cut 2 lengths. I folded the wire in half and inserted the rounded, folded end into the ear. the excess wire to the outer side of the ear was folded on itself and wrapped around itself. (see pictures), the excess wire to the inner side of the ear is joined with and wrapped around the wire from the second ear. Make sure there is enough wire in the middle to span the gap between the ears on the hat and also make sure that the ends of the wire are bent away from the head area so the wearer doesn't get poked.

I wanted to make it as comfortable as possible so I decided to sew and stuff a channel for the wire so the wire wouldn't touch the person. Cut a rectangle of fabric that is longer than the wire and will wrap around the wire with plenty of room to stuff. (see photo). Sit the ear rig by the fabric and mark where the ears will go through. Cut slits for the ears and insert the ears in them. Sew up one end and then start sewing the long side. It's easier to sew a little, stuff to that point and then sew some more, repeating until you sew up the whole thing.

Insert the ears into the hat. Hand sew the hat openings to the ears to keep in place.

Cut out the face details and glue on. Cut a rectangle of pink fleece for the head band and glue on with liquid stitch. Then make and attach the standard sailor hat.

The rest of the body is green.