Hi guys! I finally managed to work up the courage to try making my first real hand puppet, but now I'm not brave enough to try covering it in cloth. To complicate matters, I didn't use a pattern, so the little fellows head shape turned out a bit odd. I've had the unfinished puppet head laying around for months now, and I'm beginning to feel a bit sorry for the little guy, so I decided it was time to see if the experts at Puppets and Stuff could give me some pointers and help ease my fears!

You are in luck! Daryl has actually done a video on this. Here is part one of the process. The process is called draping.
Covering the Foam Head with Antron Fleece--Part 1 of 6

If you go to YouTube you can see the rest of them on his channel.

This is a nice video that shows the concept of draping that Daryle uses in his video only it is on a simple round ball. This might be a really nice practice project before you try things out on your main puppet head. Felt stretches much like fleece does. The one difference when you are covering your foam head is that you are not using the spray glue on the entire piece of fabric. In fact I often fit my fabric and use pins to hold the "fins" that he shows in this video.

Covering a styrofoam ball with felt for puppets

P.S. Philip has a video on this process also I think but I can't seem to be able to find it at the moment.

cool! thanks for sharing the video. I've recently been trying to do this sort of technique on a foam head, but i'm struggling to keep the seams away from the front middle of the chin area. Unfortunately I couldn't get any fleece so i've got felt instead which is much less stretchy. I'm going to try and do another chin covering this evening, but it is just going to be way easier for me to get fleece?

Very helpful.