Hi folks, I'm new to all this, but thought I'd join up as I've started making a Puppet for my wife who is a Primary school teacher and finds puppets quite useful in her teaching. She really fancied a Muppet WhatNot, but they're not easy to get in the UK, so I thought I'd have a go! It will eventually be dressed in a school uniform and I have a metre of pink anti-pill fleece on order (I didn't want to shell out for Antron for a first project!).

So I've started with a Bashful Puppets style Round Head pattern which seems to have come out quite well so far:


I've also made some hands which, although a little rough around the edges, I'm pretty happy with!

Some wire (thin garden wire, stripped of the plastic and twisted up twice so 4 wires thick) to allow posing:


The wire helps with the contact cement when nip and tucking each finger:



The finished hands (I accidentally did the first one with the sharpie marks on the outside!):


I'm hoping any imperfections will be hidden by the fleece covering when I get to that part!


Anyhow, my reason for posting is to see if anyone has advice on the body size and/or pattern? Ideally I think it needs to have a hole in the back so that the puppet can be sat on my wife's lap when being used.

It's hard to say what size body to use, without knowing the dimensions of the head. I've not used the pattern you are using, so I don't know what size it normally is.

Here is one pattern posted by a member, Puppetlady, some years ago. Torso Pattern. You can try this out with just paper and see if there are size adjustments that you need to make.

I also want to make sure to welcome you to Puppets and Stuff! It looks like you ahve made a tremendous beginning. I look forward to seeing the completed project. Peruse Puppet Lady's gallery, you might find other useful items, like leg and foot patterns.

Welcome. Your progress looks great! I have used the puppetlady torso pattern before, it is a great shape, I did however find the neck hole a little large for my projects. Making it out of paper first like Chris said is a good idea.  Please post more photos as you go.

You can use the pattern that Chris linked to (That is Jays aka Dr.Puppets pattern BTW) for the torso and still cut an opening in the back so your wife can use it like a vent figure on the lap. You can plug the bottom of the torso with a roundish piece of foam glued in or leave it open so the puppet can be used both ways.

Looking good and welcome to Puppets and Stuff!

Thanks folks - I like the idea of both a back and bottom opening!

I took the suggested pattern and have traced it in Inkscape (free vector graphics software) so that I can scale it (I can upload this if it's useful!).
Here is a paper version made up with the puppet head. I think perhaps it needs scaling up a bit more - this is the original size of the pattern (I'm assuming the numbers are in inches!).


Thanks for the comments and encouragement so far! 

Also, I should have added that the head pattern I just took from the Bashful Puppets blog and scaled up to fit an A4 piece of paper. It's probably therefore slightly smaller than it might be otherwise - indeed it is quite snug to get my hand into the neck (the circumference of the hole is about 9½") , but my wife will have no problem!

I've just got the tape measure out and the head measures 20" around at the bottom mouth plate, with the bottom plate itself being 8½" from fold to fold and the top 9". The head is 16" from the front to the back over the top with the mouth closed.

Also, I should have added that the head pattern I just took from the Bashful Puppets blog and scaled up to fit an A4 piece of paper. It's probably therefore slightly smaller than it might be otherwise - indeed it is quite snug to get my hand into the neck (the circumference of the hole is about 9½") , but my wife will have no problem!

I've just got the tape measure out and the head measures 20" around at the bottom mouth plate, with the bottom plate itself being 8½" from fold to fold and the top 9". The head is 16" from the front to the back over the top with the mouth closed.

Welcome! Your puppet looks good, I just wanted to say regarding size that you will not just want to consider your wife's measurements, but also the range of movement. A snug fit may be too 'tight' for the materials to move in the way she needs it to move. Obviously, it's a bit of an experiment as to how much is too wide and how much is too narrow. Perhaps - if it's not a surprise gift - you should get her to test out the pattern before committing. Don't forget also that paper will not move and respond like the foam will, so you might want to give yourself a bit of an error margin when converting from paper to foam. Far easier to work within the builder's maxim of "measure twice, cut once" than discover after cutting and gluing that the size isn't right.

Welcome to P&S, the puppet looks awesome so far, and I'm sure you will learn a lot about scaling up patterns and what shapes are best to use.

If its any help to you in making a 'whatnot'style puppet with interchangeable features, then look into what is known as 'display loop' fabric, it is effectively the fluffy side of Velcro in fabric form, normally used for shop displays I think, but it makes great 'whatnot' puppets, you simply use it like you normally would use fleece, it covers seems very well and you can sew the hook side of Velcro to the back of the facial features to make them interchangeable. I have used this stuff before to do the same thing and it works really well, the fabric is fairly easy to work with and not expensive really.
Ben.

I took the suggested pattern and have traced it in Inkscape (free vector graphics software) so that I can scale it (I can upload this if it's useful!).

That would be great! I am sure others would like to have that available. Yes I the numbers on the original would be in inches as Puppetlady is in the US.

Here is a PDF file of the template, I have split it across two A4 pages with a generous overlap so it should be easy to print.

If anyone wants to edit or scale it, then I have put the SVG file on dropbox as the gallery here won't accept this file format. You could download Inkscape (free!) to edit it.