When I decided to write up my little bear hand puppet as the Tingle Factor Item earlier this week, Roy was really excited. Roy loves puppets, and he decided it was a perfect time to show his friends how to create one of their own. The children Roy knows love to sew so he thought a felt puppet would be perfect, but the younger ones find it difficult to sew around complex shapes. It had to be simple. Then, he saw a puppet which I was making and decided the simple little owl would be perfect. So this week, Roy Creates A Simple Owl Hand Puppet.
You Will Need:
- A printed copy of the pattern sheet. Download Owl Pattern
- A couple of pieces of felt. Roy used mid brown for the body, dark brown for the wings and face and orange for the beak.You can use whatever colours you like. Blue would make a great blue bird or try yellow for a canary.
- Sewing cotton in colours which match or contrast with the felt (whichever you prefer)
- 4 buttons, 2 large and 2 small. These will be the owls eyes, so make sure they the two pairs match and that when a small is stacked on top of a large one they look good!
- Scissors
- A needle
Optional:
- Sequins, glitter, glue, scraps of fabric etc to decorate your puppet.
Method:
- Cut out the template pieces carefully.
- Use the template to cut out the pieces for your owl from your felt. You will need 2 of the 'body' pieces, 2 of the 'wing' pieces, one 'face' and one 'beak'
- Position the wings on one of the body pieces and use simple small running stitches to sew them in place. You don't need to sew down the outside edge because you can sew this down when you sew the body pieces together.
- Position the face above the wings and sew it down with small running stitches.
- To make the eyes, sew the buttons onto the face in two stacks. You want to sew a small button on top of a big button to make big googly eyes.
- Sew the beak in place with small running stitches in a line through the centre. This will allow the beak to stand out from the puppets face.
- Now sew the two 'body' pieces together with small runnning stitches. You want to sew along the curved side, but leave the flat side open. This is where you will put your hand to operate your puppet.
- If you like, add some decorations to your puppet.
- Enjoy playing with your little owl.
