Those Popular Puppets

I'm delighted by the positive response my puppets have generated! I am asked lots of questions about them at shows, so I want to answer some of those before I offer a puppet pattern for you to download.

Backs of Raccoon, Cow, and Squirrel Puppets (showing tails)

I'm asked why I show tails and other features on the backs of my puppets. When I used to work with puppets to teach children about animals, I liked to have the puppets be as active as possible: hiding their faces shyly against my shoulder, climbing up my arm, scampering across my lap, wrestling with each other, and so forth. During these actions, a puppet is seen from all angles. I wanted them to be interesting --- and authentic --- from the back as well as the front. I wanted to show the animals' most distinguishing features so that the children would recognize them wherever they encountered them; in pictures, storybooks, television programs, movies, parks or zoos. That's why I also add hands, paws, hooves, or wings to the puppet arms.

Teddy Bear, Cat, and Rabbit Puppets - notice the different eyes

Why don't I use the commercial plastic movable eyes, rather than making eyes with layers of felt? The answer is that I don't want to produce choking hazards. Children in the age group who like to play with puppets are not likely to chew on them. They may, however, have little brothers and sisters who would. Small children will put anything in their mouths! One of mine tried to swallow a handful of small change when his grandmother's attention wandered for a moment. Another reason is that I like to think my puppets' felt eyes are more individual and expressive than those plastic ones.

Puppy Puppet front (outside) and back (inside) pieces showing stitching

One interesting question was,”How do you get their heads to be so firm?” I stuff them, of course, preferably with fiberfill. But the real “secret” involves what I do to the “wrong”(reverse) sides of the heads before I put the fronts and backs together. First I sew the two halves of the heads to the respective parts of their bodies. Then I turn them over so that I can work on the insides of the heads. I sew the neck --- which extends well up into what will be the head cavity --- to the inside of the face, using very small overcast stitches that catch just the surface of the felt and do not show through to the other side. (This takes a little practice, so you may want to try it on felt scraps before you attempt it.) I do the same thing to the back of the head and also stitch down any other loose edges. For example, the top of the lamb's gray head is sewn to the back of the scalloped white “wool”. The extra stitching gives the head more strength and solidity, so that it does not sag or wrinkle. Remember when stuffing the heads to leave enough room for the puppeteer's fingers.

Could you tell a story using these Reindeer, Walrus, and Polar Bear Puppets?

My favorite question came from a mother holding a beautiful baby girl about six months old. “It will be a long time before she is old enough to play with the puppets,” she said. “Is there some way she could enjoy them now?” I gave her several suggestions. Since the child will obviously be in a crib for some time yet, the most obvious thing would be to suspend the puppets from strings and hang them above her crib where she can see them easily. Another easy solution would be to pad a small bulletin board and cover it with felt, flannel, or fleece to hang near the child's crib or playpen. Small pieces of Velcro sewn or glued on the backs of the puppets will allow them to stick to the board. But they can also be detached and moved around the board to help the mother act out stories, rhymes, or songs. If longevity isn't an issue, the arms and bodies of the puppets can be stuffed with fiberfill, cotton, or fabric scraps and the bottoms sewn shut to make huggable soft toys. A little weight added inside the bottoms and they could even stand up by themselves. These were ideas that sprang immediately to mind. I'm sure you could all think of others.

Little Pink Pig Puppet with folded ears

Those of you who have been reading my blog posts for a while probably already know about the little pink pig puppet that started me designing and making puppets (April 17, 2013). I'm giving all of you a pattern (with instructions) that you can download to make your own little pink pig. (Click here to download.) The picture shows an alternate appearance for the pig. Just gently curl his ears forward and attach the tips to his face with a few tiny pink stitches. If you are doing a set of the Three Little Pigs, you might make one with upright ears, one with curled ears, and the third with one of each kind of ear.

Pig Puppet Pattern (Click to download)

I'd like to express a caution about size. My hands are small. Most children of an age to enjoy playing with hand puppets can wear puppets patterned to my hand size, especially with a little stuffing in the ends of the puppet arms. If you are going to be the puppeteer yourself, check your hand size against the puppet body pattern before you cut out the pieces. If the pattern is too small for you, cut out the body pattern from a folded piece of plain paper. Cut it apart along the fold. Place the two halves on a plain sheet of paper and move them apart until they are big enough to fit you (including a quarter-inch seam allowance on each side). Tape the half-patterns to the paper and draw a straight line across the neck edge and the bottom edge. Cut out the new pattern piece and you are ready to pin it to felt. Check to see if the head still fits the body. If not, enlarge the head in the same way. To make the pieces smaller you can trim them off along the outsides or cut them as described above and overlap the two halves until they are the right size. You will probably have to shorten them at the bottom, as well.

Whether you have small children or grandchildren or not, why not make a little pig for some little person to love?

Annake

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A Perky 'Possum Puppet

Annake with the Little Pink Pig Puppet

'Tis the season ... for craft shows and Christmas bazaars. We have been doing our share of them. The hand puppets are always a popular item. I've been pleased with the number of people who have come up to me to say they enjoyed the story behind the little pink pig. If you have read that blog, (April 17, 2013), you know how I got into making puppets in the first place. I'd always done realistic art work, so making the caricatures that were necessary for a child's puppets was hard for me at first. I wanted to put in too much detail. My class members, who were making most of the puppets, soon convinced me that this was both unnecessary and undesirable!

Red Fox Puppet, Front View

The more I worked with the designs, however, the more I enjoyed the cartooning process. Now I design and make puppets for my own enjoyment as much as for that of the children who will eventually receive them. I especially enjoy making animal puppets and giving them “personalities” of their own. They're one of the few items I make more than once. Even then, no two versions of an animal turn out to be exactly alike. For some time I've wanted to make a perky 'possum puppet. (Say that out loud five times quickly!) Let me share the process with you.

Fox Puppet, Back View, showing tail

The most important part of a hand puppet's design is the face. The bodies are pretty standard for animals with paws or hooves, but need to be modified for ones with wings or flippers. I try to make the backs of the puppets interesting, paying particular attention to their tails. The first thing I do is cut out two stock bodies, a front and a back., from the appropriate color of felt --- gray, in this case. The back of the 'possum's body is medium gray and the front is light gray. These pieces have a “wrong” and a “right” side since I adjust the patterns for the fact that a hand's thumb and little finger are joined to the hand at slightly different levels. I have small hands, so a puppet that fits me will work for most children, although it is sometimes necessary to pad the tips of the puppet's “arms” with cotton or fiberfill for very small hands.

Possum Face Sketch

I make a cartoon sketch of the animal's head, using colored pencils that approximate the colors of felt that I plan to use. Once I have the basic features and have captured the expression that I want, I trace the outline of the head, cut it out, and place it over the front of the body. Sometimes the sketch is too large or too small and has to be adjusted for size. Or I may have to make some small changes so that the left and right sides match. When I'm satisfied with the head shape, I make a new pattern out of a heavier, more durable paper and cut one out of felt. I place one on the front of the body to decide how far it should overlap the “neck” of the puppet, pinning the head in place. I make a second paper pattern for the back of the head, leaving off the “chin” or “muzzle” and rounding off the back of the head where it will overlap the neck in a gentle curve. I cut out the felt for the back of the head and turn it and the back of the body over.

Possum Body and Head Pieces

I match the front and back, wrong sides together, adjusting until they fit exactly. The back is now ready to be sewn together. I mark the position of the head on the front of the body with a couple of small pins. Then I remove the head so that I can put on all the facial features. Some of these are sewn on in layers, while others are drawn with permanent markers.

I wanted my puppet to be a mother opossum with some babies. When I was in college, someone brought our biology class a female opossum that had been hit by a car. There was nothing we could do to save her life, but six of the babies in her pouch were alive and apparently unharmed. Working in shifts around the clock, we fed them with doll's bottles and carried them in our pockets to keep them warm. They gripped our fingers with their tough little tails and dangled underneath our hands. Eventually they were weaned onto solid food and we were able to release them into the wild.

Possum Puppet Pouch Detail

A mother opossum's pouch is a slit that runs along her belly from front to back, with babies tucked in on both sides. If I were making a stuffed animal, I would make it that way, put in a zipper, and stuff it with babies. This wouldn't work for my 'possum puppet, however. So I made a side-to-side pouch like that of a mother kangaroo (another marsupial). When making puppets, I sometimes have to take liberties with Nature.

Possum Puppet Tail Detail

I try to avoid having loose parts on my puppets that a small child might pull off and swallow. That's why I don't use buttons, beads, ball fringe, sequins, etc. Therefore, I chose to applique the “babies” to the mother's body rather than having them loose in her pocket. On the back, I added a long tail for the mother and appliqued a single baby hanging from it. Up to this point, all sewing was done by hand. The two halves of the puppet were sewn together by machine and the head was stuffed lightly with fiberfill.

Opossums are not particularly intelligent, or even attractive, but they are survivors. They have been around much longer than we have, spreading from their original home in South America throughout the United States and well into Canada by now. As scavengers, they are a part of Nature's clean-up crew. I hope this new puppet will help children learn to respect them as much as they do the more “cuddly” creatures. They all have their parts to play in the great scheme of things.

Season's Greetings,

Annake

Finished Possum Puppet, Front and Back Views

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Thanks to a Little Pink Pig -- Felt Puppets for Children

Angel puppet, showing scale

I've been indulging in one of my most enjoyable pastimes – designing and making felt hand puppets for children. I started making puppets decades ago when I had small children of my own. Those were the days when Kukla, Fran, and Ollie had one of the most popular programs on television. As a teacher, I found puppets very useful for reaching young children. I could use animal puppets to teach them about life on the farm or in the desert or the jungle. Character puppets could illustrate history or life in other other cultures, as well as demonstrating concepts like kindness and cooperation. Even fifth-graders enjoyed the puppets, although they felt they were far too sophisticated to admit it.

Although it is one of my simplest designs, my favorite puppet is a little pink pig. Let me tell you how that came about.

More than thirty years ago, my day job was teaching art and craft classes for a Parks and Recreation center near Fort Carson, Colorado, while I taught night courses at a business college in Colorado Springs. One of my craft classes was engaged in making several dozen puppets to take to Children's Hospital in Denver at the end of the session.

The Little Pink Pig

The class members were a diverse group, differing in age, ethnicity, and previous crafting experience. Only one was a native Coloradoan. The others came from as far away as New York and California and one was from the Navajo reservation. They were friendly and enthusiastic and a joy to teach. They really kept me hopping, designing new puppets each week.

At last the big day arrived. We gathered up our bags of puppets and formed a small convoy to convey them to Denver. After a kind greeting from hospital administrators, we began walking through the wards, showing the puppets and giving them away to the children as we went.

I had the little pink pig puppet on my hand and was making it bow and wave or hide its face shyly against my shoulder as I approached a nurse who was holding a very limp-looking toddler in her arms. Suddenly the little one gave a faint cry and reached both arms toward the puppet. I pulled the little pig off and handed it over.

The nurse's eyes filled with tears. As our group gathered around her, she explained that the child had been brought in some time before, suffering from a closed head injury. The doctors feared that there was brain damage. The little pink pig was the very first thing the child had responded to.

Red fox puppet

Soon there were a lot more damp eyes on that ward, including those of the child's mother and grandmother, hastily called up from the hospital cafeteria. But the tears were tears of hope and joy. It was then, and still remains, one of the best days of my life. 

The head nurse was kind enough to keep us informed of the child's steady progress and eventual release. Just about everyone in the center had become interested in the matter and we were all greatly cheered by the good news.

This past December I was making new puppets when I remembered the little pink pig and wondered if I still had the patterns from that long-ago class. (I'm the proverbial pack rat and seldom throw anything away that might possibly be useful someday.) I rummaged through file boxes until I found a dusty expandable folder that looked promising. Inside were all my old patterns. I've started making them again, along with new designs.

The "End"

The very first one I made was a little pink pig.

And no matter how many characters I create, or how many “critters” I portray, my very favorite one will always be a jolly little pink pig with a jaunty curl in its tail.

Annake

These, and other puppets, are available in our Etsy shop

 This post by Annake's Garden is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.