What tool do you use for hair punching?  I am trying to punch ostridge feather fronds for hair.  Tried felting needle but there isn't anything to grab the frond to push in. Tried cutting the eye of a needle.  It worked well on foam, but couldn't get it to punch through fleece covered foam....?

I think even a traditional punch (pretty much just a needles eye cut) is going to have problems with the fleece. You might need to first punch a hole in the fleece with something like an awl or the "correct" end of a fat needle.

I tried searching on hair punch needles.  Some sites mention using on plastic or silicone, some mention foam.  I've been thinking about this as well.  I think it might be easier with antron fleece, since the weave seems more open than regular fleece. I'm going to try cutting a large eye needle. 

Julie

 Feathers are a bit more delicate than mohair used in doll hair rooting or latex methods. If you did root the feather frond in the antron what would hold it in place. As Shawn stated you would probably have to use a awl to punch a hole in the fabric and into the foam and using a syringe to inject some type glue to hold it in place and wait for it to dry. They are felting needles, embroidery punching tools, and as Julie said alter a sewing needle as punching device. This is something one would have to experiment with. Traditional doll rooting once punched is the secured by gluing from inside the doll head. Could you punch the feather fronds into the head of the puppet skin before being attached to the foam skull by hand sewing them on? a tedious method but the outcome would be nice depending on how thick you are rooting.
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https://youtu.be/cb5cLvOQuWE

http://punchneedlemarketplace.com/

http://www.secristdolls.com/rooting_needles?b=1

Shawn! I have to refresh myself on things...........in my post above why is there a empty gap in between my post and the YouTube url?

I am having mixed results.  I tried a smaller needle stuck into a wood dowel. so it is punching through now.  But gettign them to stay is trickey.  Seems I pull one out per 2 I put in.  I tried spray glue inside to hold them, but that has only moderately helped.  The more dense I go, the more I pull out.  I like the look, just having problems getting there...

Shawn! I have to refresh myself on things...........in my post above why is there a empty gap in between my post and the YouTube url?

Not sure what happened there but I have it fixed. Could have been the system adding some extra code.

I think maybe you might want to use a combination of techniques here. First for a dense area of feathers/hair I think I would take and apply the feathers to a strip of fabric or perhaps sew them between two pieces of tissue paper so you have a line or string of fringe feathers. You can actually buy these feathers in this form. You glue that to the head where you want the dense hair and then on say the hair line at the front you would then punch in some individual feathers to make it look more natural. This is kind of the method that wig makers often take with wigs. the top, side and back of the wig is made up of machine made weaves of hair but then just in the front at the hair line they sew in a piece of hair lace (delicate netting) and then ventilate individual strands of hair in to make it look natural.

Another tip that may be useful when you want to insert and secure feathers. You punch your hole where you want the feather to be then you take the end of the feather and poke it either into the end of the glue gun or the end of a tube of glue. This coats the end of the feather in glue thinly and then you poke that into the hole. I do this a lot with full feathers but it is a bit trickier with the individual fronds like you are using. It can be done though.

Strange idea... has anyone tried using a tambour needle? I have one and have tried using it (I'm pretty crap at it) but it might be possible to use one on fleece, so long as you had lots of practice and figured out a way to string feathers using it. It's not exactly the easiest option it's just something that came to mind because you guys were talking about using needles.

The main reason I bring it up is because it's specifically designed for punching through the material and threading back up.
http://embroideryaddict.blogspot.com.au/2008/08/chain-stich-in-tambour-work.html

Not sure how feasible it is though. For some reason I can never get more than a stitch or two and that's doing the needlework as described in the link above.

Hmm... I had never heard of a tambour needle. Looks like it may be promising. It would be the opposite approach in that you would be pulling the feather from the outside to the inside.  Maybe you could somehow "fasten" the end of the feather between the fleece and foam. Thinking maybe you could leave the back seam of the fleece open so you could get in and pull through feathers then glue down to the foam as you work your way back.

I am off to explore the word of tambor to see what other stitches there may be. If there is one that could leave a long loop on the right side of the fabric you could do do hair that way in either yarn or embroidery thread... hmmm.