Sorry I haven't been on in while, but I've finally added eyes!


I tried adding the yarn I showed earlier to make hair, but it just didn't look very good. What should I use for hair?

Today I will also be going out and getting supplies to make arm rods. Wish me luck!

Well, you can use many things for hair but I think yarn is one of the cheapest and easiest ways to go. There are many techniques it just depends on the look you're going for. You can click on the three links below to see 3 puppets I've made using yarn for hair.



All of these are using yarn for their hair and one for his beard. Pretty much all using a very similar technique just different kinds and thicknesses of yarn.

Those are not your grandmothers yarn.   Great examples of how you can use yarn for hair. The variety in yarn now is so much more then it used to be. You can really get some great looking effects with it.

Those are not your grandmothers yarn.

Very true Shawn! Although the guy in the first photo is using something fairly normal. I have a little girl puppet in my gallery but I didn't include her here because I have to upload a photo of her with her finished hair.

What I should have included Zach was the links that showed me some techniques that came in pretty handy.
This site is where I picked up the technique I used in making all three of the puppets you see here.
http://needlenoodles.com/home/?q=node/83

This next one came in very handy in making the hair for the little girl puppet I mentioned. It was a pretty cool and easy way to make hair.
http://www.tantehilde.be/wrdprss/?page_id=80

Whatever method or materials you go with I hope you don't have a hairy time of it. (Heh, heh, Fozzie would be so proud) 

Puppetainer, I was wondering exactly how you went about doing the hair on the puppet in your avatar. The picture you posted makes it look very similar to the yarn I bought for my puppet, but I'm having a little difficulty making sense of the technique shown on needlenoodles.com

Well Zach I pretty much did EXACTLY what they're showing on the needlenoodles site. I'll try to elaborate as best I can.

I made my own "hairpin loom". Basically I just cut 2 pieces of hanger wire and stuck them into a couple of pieces of foam core board, making sure that the distance between them matched the length I wanted the particular hair piece to be.

The technique they're describing just has you wrapping the yarn (that will become the hair) around the "loom" (or 2 pieces of wire) and using a simple crochet chain along one of the wires of the loom to join all the loops of yarn together. I DID have to get a bit of a refresher course in crocheting. I did some VERY basic crocheting 35 years ago or so when I was just a kid so I went here for that.
http://crochet.about.com/od/learnbasics/ss/stchain.htm

I guess it's worth mentioning that I only followed the needlenoodles method right up to the point where they talk about attaching the hair. I pretty much just used a matching thread and sewed the crocheted end of each hair piece in place. How many pieces I ended up using and how I spaced them depended on the individual puppet.

You can see here in a photo where I'm putting on the first of several layers for this puppet.

After all his layers were added the final effect worked out pretty well.


Not sure if any of that helped, but I'll be happy to give further description if you'd like. I also think I have some photos of the individual "hair pieces" before I sewed them on if you think that would help. Let me know and I'll be happy to help in any way I can!

On a side note...Shawn do you know why my gallery images are showing up as hotlinks instead of thumbnails? I'm guessing a hit a setting somewhere without realizing it. Help me O' Master of Webs!

On a side note...Shawn do you know why my gallery images are showing up as hotlinks instead of thumbnails? I'm guessing a hit a setting somewhere without realizing it. Help me O' Master of Webs!

Yes I've noticed that with others also.  I need to get in and check the code.  I thought I had it set to default to show the image.

Thanks buddy!!

It occurs to me as I reread all of this that I never exactly answered your question Zach. You asked specifically about my avatar puppet. But really I used the exact same technique as in the puppet above, just a different kind of yarn. Here's a little closer look at his hair.

And the side view that I originally posted earlier in the conversation.


Actually his hair was pretty easy because I only did 1 layer. Unlike my blonde dude above where there were several layers. I wanted a little more scraggly look for my pirate.