Hey Blog! I briefly passed over a puppet project in Bunting, wire, puppets, boats, etc. back in the Spring. Now I’m back with it after a Summer of hard work, and am ready to reveal the details to you.
Puppet Club is attended by several members of my friend group, and by now we’ve all decided what to make. We made down-right crazy decisions, for example Kenny from South Park, a plague doctor from the Middle Ages, and a vampire bat. I chose a mediaeval knight – nicknamed Sir M.I.D.Knight as M.I.D. are his initials. My puppet (which some think is typical of me) is far more complicated that most of theirs… as mine has a body, arms and legs, which is more than the simple cloak and head of the other puppets!
At the start of the project, we started off by making a project book and drawing in multiple designs, at the end of which we each chose a favourite design. I have to note here most of this was not done in the sessions, but at home; however, as my puppet required more work, I had to do more at home. In the end I whittled these choices down to just two – dragon or knight. So I had to work out whether to capture or save the princess, at which point I chose save her. Would you have chosen otherwise?!
Now that I knew what I was making, I drew the big picture of it. This is a full-page drawing of the chosen character, with all the changes made after thinking through the making process. Here is my picture:
I next compiled a list of materials I would need; these were:
- Sock (stuff to make the head and tie off, then stuff to make the body and tie off).
- Stuffing for body, head, arms, legs, hands, feet and codpiece.
- Felt in brown, to make the face; white, to make the eyes; grey to make the hands and feet (they’re in armour); and red, orange, green and blue for a background to the shield.
- Silvery-grey wool to knit into armour.
- Black wool for hair.
- Greenish fabric for a tabard, a kind of tunic without sleaves or side seam.
- Embroidery thread in black (eyes) red (mouth) red, yellow, green, blue and purple (heraldic emblems on the coat-of-arms).
- Red and blue fabric for inside and outside of cloak.
- Rickrack braid for embellishment to cloak.
- Sewing thread in different colours to connect parts.
Luckily, I had most of these materials, so I could start right away!
The second session was getting started on the actual puppet. We took a bamboo stick and a sock and stuck his head on a stick. Then we made a face out of felt and added facial features, before attaching it to the head. The armour was slower to start as I haven’t knitted since finishing my scarf back in 2019 or 2020, and I had to learn pearl stitch to make the armour as forwards and backwards stitches (knit stitch and pearl stitch) combine to make an all-forwards piece of fabric. If you find that hard to understand, try knitting yourself (I mean doing knitting, not making a wool clone) – it’s really fun! By the end of the armoury apprenticeship I could anticipate what would make it look correct. I made gauntlets, the mediaeval term for armoured gloves, and armoured shoes, which and sewed to the arms and legs. Once I had made all the pieces all I had to do was stich them up, stuff them, sew them together, and a body was complete!
The next step was to make the tabard. I used the sewing machine to hem it, and then stuck it onto the body. It’s important to note here that the neck hole was too small to get the arms through, so I sowed them on after, even though I mentioned this first. The neck hole I enclosed with an extra piece of fabric and hand-sewed, as I was going into 3D constructs with 2D fabric. Meanwhile I cut out a shield shape on paper, quartered it, and used these pieces as templates for felt. Once I had sewed them together, I embroidered designs on them, then connected the completed shield design to the tabard, as a coat-of-arms.
That is all I have on the body at the moment, as this is an ongoing project. The latest meet-up of the group was yesterday, though not everybody has attended all sessions. On Thursday I was making the cloak, but I haven’t finished. One attendee actually finished his, so the next step in the project is to make up a story for our puppets to act out. I’ve never seen South Park (educational viewing in order?) but apparently Kenny dies in every episode – in this one maybe killed by the vampire bat, plague doctor, or Sir M.I.D.Knight? or Huggy Wuggy or a picmin? Either way, it’s going to be funny!