Making a Felt Puppet

Click through the following slides to learn how to make your own felt puppets!

Fold your felt in half.

Trace an adult-sized hand.

Ask an adult to lay their hand flat on the piece of folded felt as shown in the picture. Their thumb and pinky should stick out at each side, and the three middle fingers should be together in the middle. Trace around their hand with a marker.

Cut out the pattern.

Use scissors and carefully cut around the shape. If your scissors are sharp enough, you can layer both pieces of felt on top of each other and cut them out at the same time. (If your scissors are not very sharp, you will need to trace a hand on each half of the felt and cut them out separately.) Felt typically sticks to itself, so there won’t be any need to pin the two pieces together. After you have cut out the pieces, put them together so that the pieces line up correctly and the marker lines are in the inside.

Now thread your needle.

Divide a long length of embroidery floss in half. This means that you will be working with 3 threads of embroidery floss at a time. Thread the floss through your needle and tie the two ends together. This prevents the needle from falling off while you are sewing and gives you a good knot to start your project.

Sew the felt pieces together using the straight stitch.

Sew the two pieces of felt together, leaving the bottom (the wrist area) open. Children can use either the straight stitch, shown here, or the overcast stitch, shown on the next slide. A straight stitch goes in a straight line, in and out on the same side of the fabric.

Sew the felt pieces together using the overcast stitch.

Make the overcast stitch by pushing the needle through one side of the felt, wrapping it around the edge and pushing it through the same side. This will cause the thread to wrap around the edge of the puppet. Note: This method uses a lot more thread, so make sure to have enough available.

Decorate your puppet.

Use fabric glue to add yarn (hair), buttons, googly eyes, or clothing to your puppet. You can also draw details on with markers, if you choose. Decorate your puppet any way you want!

Now, you have a finished puppet! You can make more puppets and have your very own puppet show! Send a picture of your puppet or a short puppet video to your teacher!

Outstanding!	Good work!	Could do better.	Need to improve.
You completed your art work.	Most of your art work is complete.	Some of your art work is incomplete.	Most of your art work is incomplete.
Your work is done correctly.	Most of your art work is done correctly.	Some of your art work is done incorrectly.	Most of your art work is done incorrectly.
Your work is neat and tidy.	Your work is mostly neat and tidy.	Some of your work is neat and tidy.	Most of your work is not neat and tidy.
You put your best effort into your art work.	You put a good effort into your art work.	You put some effort into your art work.	You put little effort into your art work.

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