Piupiu

Piupiu take a long time and lots of resources to make by hand (on average about 30 to 40 hrs for one!) as well as considerable skill and experience, and this is reflected in their price. We are happy to provide you with a free piupiu quote for your school or group, which you can use for any funding application or to place a firm order.

We will need the following details from your side for a quote: Sizes (waist measurements in cm or inches, NOT Dress size or Age or S,M,L!), Gender and corresponding numbers. If you have an existing pattern, we also require a photo of that to give you an accurate price, as some patterns are more complex (and time-consuming) than others, which will be reflected in the price.

The best way to do it would be to measure some of the groups’ members—perhaps one of the smallest, one of the largest and a few in between. Add a few inches for overlap, and then determine how many would fit into each size group.

Please see here for a sample quote.

We make piupiu as a team of 3 Full-time and 2 part-time weavers from around the country. We work on a “First in, first serve” basis and usually have a waiting list. We thank you for your understanding!

To demonstrate how long the process of making a piupiu can be, we’ve created this presentation on the right, on how to make a piupiu. It is NOT a tutorial, and if you want to learn how to make a piupiu yourself, you best learn on a one-on-one basis with an experienced kaiako (we do have some online lessons inside the weaver’s circle, but they are no substitute for a person to person learning experience).

As you can imagine, if you have a large group of people (perhaps even a mixture of children and adults), we can’t possibly “guesstimate” what sizes they are going to wear as each piupiu is essentially made to measure.. and priced accordingly – however, most schools or groups will have around 4-6 generic sizes also to fit future generations – so we do not need a measurement for each person down to the last centimetre (with groups of up to 50 that would be counterproductive) but perhaps groups of sizes – we will group them otherwise from our end.

Even if you are only after 1 for yourself, we will still need these details as we can’t possibly guess what you are after. When it comes to Piupiu, one size does not fit all!

Please use the form on our contact page to get in touch with us regarding the ordering of a piupiu or the request for a quote for piupiu. If your enquiry is urgent then please give us a call at 021 14 77 395 or 03 212 88 33 or e-mail us directly: flaxworx@gmail.com

Small Children’s Piupiu

The smallest Piupiu is around 22″ – 24″ waist (5-6 years old..) – anything smaller gets very fiddly and more work (equals more time and money) … so they are not that cheap when you want one for your pepi or moko – we recommend to get a cloth version from Kanikani Kids perhaps for that very young age group – also they would last a lot better as the real thing needs a bit of TLC and very young kids usually (not always) can’t understand that yet. Adult sizes start at 30″waists.

Last but not least

On that note – whilst the mumu, poutama etc patterns look great on an adult piupiu – they are not really suitable for children’s piupiu as there is simply not enough space (both in the drop or waist) to work with for a pattern such as this (the more canvas, the more detail in the painting so to speak…) – so for any piupiu smaller than 30″waists we recommend the Korirangi Pattern only.

Below are photos of just a few of the different piupiu we’ve made over the last 10 + years. Some are customer-specific designs and can’t be repeated but there are literally hundreds of different variations of each pattern group.

We do thank you for your understanding!