october 19, 2004

Oh my God, it's finally over. Let's go through the last day.

Step eight (cont.): sew on button eyes.

I did, in fact, cut off the eyes and sew them on again. During my second spin through this step, I discovered that the thread holes are so wide on the buttons that I really need to pay attention to my stitching to avoid slippage. I paid attention and poof! Reasonably straight eyes. My Poeppet no longer looks like Mr. Gosh. Yay.

Step nine: use dark brown embroidery floss to create hair.

I had a few different ideas for this, but discarded most as impractical. I ended up cutting a number of short lengths of floss, threading each through a very large needle, and making a tiny stitch in the head just in front of the top seam. I then pulled one end of the floss out the other side, evened up the thread, and tied two knots down on the scalp. Once I'd done 8 knots, it actually started to look cute.

Step ten: design and attach the mouth.

For some reason, I just couldn't figure out an appropriate mouth for my Poeppet. Should I embroider a line with the red floss? Should I use a felt shape? Should I make tiny white teeth? Should the Poeppet smile or frown or have a shapeless doll mouth? In the end, I just cut out a few different shapes of red felt while the Boy put Blake to bed, and tried each on the face. There was the devil-may-care sideways smirk that went well with Poet's chosen weapon (the Romantisizer). There was the big smiley V that looked kind of psychotic with the wide button eyes (not a puppet face you can turn your back on). And there was the shapeless O of a mouth that seemed a bit alarmed but not very much fun. The clear winner was the sideways smirk. A dozen stitches later, and the Poeppet was done.

Here he is, all dressed up.

me and my creation

Now all he needs is a little finger puppet representing his baby daughter, and he's all set. (Ha! Another project!)

words & images (c) rocketmom, 2004.
as most puppetmaking concepts are pulled out of my butt, you're welcome to steal 'em.