Thar be a pie-rat out thar...

NOTE TO EDIT:

They won the award for Most Creative! Yeah.

The Whirligig Bookstore owners decided to get on board with the Pirate Halloween theme some of the other businesses have done for the season.

I was called in to help make some Pie-Rats.

This here is Max.

 And his friend Maxine. I love how the skirt is flared out on the bottom. It's a warm, but windy, wet day here thanks to Hurricane Sandy.

 (Thoughts go out to those really affected by her wake. Especially New York.)

 Whoa! There's another Pirate! I didn't make him! Look at that steely eye! 

(wave hello to Bernie, one of the owners)

Making these guys was a challenge. I love challenges. And I din't even curse while making them. I started out with the idea of towels, but they are rather heavy and shapeless. And they drooped. Bernie had a bunch of wooden stakes so I swiped 'em and used the huge bag of bubble wrap we had left over from our move. 

Here are the legs.. bubble wrap around the stakes and then stabilized on the top.

 Stuffed into some pants or tights. And boots.

For the body, I started with a coat hanger taken apart. I figure.. you can hang your clothes on it, it's probably the right size for a shirt.

 I wrapped both ends to make arms, then gathered a long piece of wrap to make the body.

 I folded it over the top to make a sort of pouch on the bottom and taped it to make a neck. Then I stuffed with more wrap.

 I did make some adjustments once a shirt was put on. There were no shoulders.

Sorry, that's all the photos on how to make it. To attach the body and legs together, I used another stake making it perpendicular to the leg brace shown above and taped the sucker together. Like lots of tape. Make sure it is long enough to make a neck and support the head.

I put the stake through the clothes and up the top. 

These heads are masks. I stuffed it with newspaper and plunked it on the nail at the top of the stake. 

Aren't they great! Oh, I didn't want to take any chances, so I sewed the hat on the head through the slit in the mouth. These babies are sewed up the ying yang. The shirt is sewn to the pants, the boats are sewn to the pants, the hat is sewn on, the hook is sewn on, the flag is sewn on... where ever things are joined, they are sewn down.

To string them up, we tied rope around the waist, under the clothes and up through the back of the neck.

Thanks for the challenge Bernie. That was fun! 

Happy Pirate Halloween!