Judi's Puppet Repair!

 We are Puppet coaches at our church.  The kid have a competition coming up soon, and the kids have noticed some of our puppets need repairs.  Imagine!  Most of the puppets are only 15-20 years old!  They are the same puppets that Jay and Jenni used in high school, only older!  Making repairs to the body is not hard.  Just need a sewing machine or a needle and thread.  Been there, done that many times.

However, most of the puppets need new hair.  I have never done that before.  So I googled how to make puppet hair, to no avail.  How to use craft fur for puppet hair, nothing out there.  I took a good look at my puppet's hair.
                 

Just some simple stitching all around the wig.
















Just how hard could this be?  Anything would be an improvement!  So I dug in.  First step....remove the current head of hair.  Not hard at all.  Just a simple hemming stitch all around.  Now I have a bald puppet!
And he actually looks better bald than with his matted hair!  It was tempting to stop here.


Next step, make a pattern using the old hair.  That was simple enough, but I wanted this puppet to have "bangs".  So I actually had to make TWO patterns, one for the front and one for the back.  The front was easy.  I just used his original hair for the pattern.  The back I drew out on the remaining craft fur.  I have not sewn in a long time.  I could not find my marking chalk.  Good thing Ava has crayons here!  White crayon to the rescue!
             
The thing I did not know about craft fur -- it sheds like crazy.  The bottom was literally coming apart.  So, I drug out the sewing machine and stitched some very small stitches around the bottom.

Craft fur seems to run only one direction. I was not confident I could comb it the other direction.  This is why I made my project harder than it probably needed to be!  I had two pieces to sew on the head...one for the back of the head, and one for the front of the head.  This time I remembered to stitch the craft fur BEFORE I cut it.  Much easier.

The stitching was tedious, but so easy to do!  And below is the finished project:


                         
This puppet has a much different personality with his new hair!  Now I know how Stacy and Clinton feel!
And maybe I will figure out a better way to do this before long.

I am not stopping here.  Most of what I found on the internet for puppet wigs was about making doll hair out of yarn.  Since our girl puppets all have pig tails, I think they would look better with yarn hair than with craft fur hair.  Today I was covered in craft fur.  Tomorrow, it will be yarn!

I would never have had the time or the energy to do this if I were still employed.  I am so grateful that I was able to retire early!

"Create in me a clean heart, O God.
Renew a loyal spirit within me."
Psalm 51:10


Comments

Susan @ Blessed Assurances said…
those puppets bring back memories of Bible Hour w/ the Worley's :)
11:14 PM
Melissa Jackson said…
Impressive! The new hair looks great, and your puppet looks years younger! :o)
9:55 AM
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