Final Sock Puppet Post

This'll be my last sock puppet post. It took me long enough, yeah?

I made Ms. Michaelsock's hat by knitting a square and using a running stitch with the same yarn on the outer edge of the square and gathering it. It's similar to what you would do if you were making a fabric yo-yo. I don't know that that makes complete sense. A different way of doing it would be to hot glue the square to itelf while making it rounded and kind of poofy. I actually used a combination of both techniques. 

I made the hair by guestimating the correct length. I made an X with two lengths of yarn and then secured the yarn hairs together by alternating and tying threads through the two middles of the X.

I then braided a piece of yarn and hot glued it to the top of the puppet to make her hair more interesting that just a long bunch of hanging yarn.

After that I glued the main piece on like so:

And then the finished hat got glued on as well.

I had thought of leaving it like that and calling it good but I felt there was a way to make it better. So, I used some gold and black Premo Sculpey I already had to make her a ukulele. Character is in the accessories after all.

I started with a rolled out oval shape like this:

Then I basically squeezed it with my fingers, pulled the neck out and poked it a bit. Probably slapped it around too. After all that abuse I ended up with this:

Then I added black accents and some wire I had laying around. The knobby bits on there were made with four little pieces of wire with some tear dropped little pieces of clay stuck into them which were in turn stuck into the neck of the uke. After about 40 minutes of baking the uke was finished, I hot glued a circle of elastic on the back of it so I could wear it bracelet style with the puppet.

And, voila! Le Ingrid Michaelsock. (Please excuse my lack of accent marks, I don't know how to do them in this program thingy and I'm too lazy to figure it out. Otherwise I'd just use a different word/phrase and skip the pseudo French usage altogether. I don't know French anyway.)

Sock Puppet Tutorial Part 3

After finishing the mouth the next thing I did was giver her some eyes. Though you can't really see them very well I marked where the eyes should go with two dots from a green colored pencil. I had the puppet on my hand when I marked them since I figured it would be more accurate than marking them with the puppet flat.

After marking where the eyes should go I sewed on buttons the traditional way. I used brown buttons and black thread, I figured the black would be the closest equivalent to an eyes iris. This is what it looked like on the inside: 

 And this is what it looked like on the outside:

 I decided I wanted her to have some eyelashes so I used multiple black threads sewn through the sock fabric and tied on the top with long tails. I think I did three or four knots for each eye. I skipped bottom lashes since I thought it would be too heavy visually.  It ended up looking like this (it kind of looks I'm strangling it at this point):

This is how it looks so far with an actual human hand (my desk is typically a mess, I make no apologies. It's my desk.):

 I did the glasses next with some premo sculpey clay I had lying around (I had bought it ages ago when it was on sale and hadn't done anything with it). I figured I'd start with making a pattern to cut the shape out of a slab of clay. I'd done that sort of thing with ceramic clay and had it work. I did not have the same result with this, it's a much harder clay and not a very good consistancy for smoothing after some of the rough lines created by cutting. So while I started with this:

This:

And this:

I switched tatics after it all went to...well, after it didn't work. It just didn't. I then did this:

And trimmed it down, stretched it and smoothed it out so it looked like this:

It didn't turn out nearly as polished as I wanted but I'd already spent a good amount of time on it and really wanted to move on. If it were a gift for someone or something I was going to sell I would have stubbornly reworked and reworked it until I deemed it acceptable (or, darn near perfect), as it was I was doing this for fun and didn't think I'd win the contest, by any means. This part was quickly approaching un-fun territory for me so I opted to get on with it before I simply threw it on a shelf and forgot about it for a while (as is what tends to happen with projects that don't have deadlines when they get to a stage that's frustrating to the perfectionist in me). I followed the directions on baking the clay but I think I added some time on since it still seemed fairly soft when I had taken it out on their suggested cooking time. Be careful on temperature and everything, I once accidentally burnt some sculpey and the resulting fumes were noxious. It took fans and all of the windows open to get the smell out. My family was not pleased. That was probably about 10 years ago, actually, and I still remember it.

After baking and cooling the glasses I attached it to the puppet using my hot glue gun. I put something in the sock to hold the face out instead of leaving it flat so it wouldn't look weird when worn and so my hand wouldn't get burnt from hot glue. All that's left to do for her is hair, a hat and her ukulele; I'll show you how to do those things next time.

Sock Puppet Tutorial Part 2

I think we've established that I am bad at keeping a blog. Whelp.... Here's some more of the sock puppet tutorial.

Now, that copy of the mouth pattern in card stock is for the inner mouth. It'll be too big to comfortably fit inside the mouth of the puppet so it'll need some trimming. I just set it inside the puppet and marked the over hang.

When you trim it down there should be a little bit of sock past all sides like this:

 

Then, you hot glue fabric onto the card stock like so: 

 I didn't get a pictures of it but the next step is to hot glue this part onto the mouth of the puppet, there will be some glue seeping out between the two layers. To hide the seep-age and to create a lip ridge I carefully rolled the sock fabric into the glue over the edges of the cardstock/fabric mouth. Pictured bellow are the lips I then painted onto the sock. I just eye-balled it:

 Here's what it looks like open at this point, you can see that the corners of the mouth and along the inner lip are the rolled inward sides of the sock.

 I then painted teeth, they're really more like a row of white ovals that are then outlined in black. I was going to pain a tongue and that dangly thing that's in the back of your throat but it looked kinda dumb so I painted over it with a color a little darker than the one I used for the lips.

 And that's how I made the main part of the puppet. My sock puppet philosophy is that the mouth makes the expression but the accessories make the character/individual. So, accessories and details are coming up next post.

Sock Puppet Tutorial Part 1, after some shop talk.

I've been neglectful. There is no real good excuse. I guess that happens when there are things I'd rather be doing than blogging.

Since last I left quite a bit has happened. I've started offering silk fiber rings with semi-precious stones instead of exclusively offering cotton, I've sent rings to both France and Australia, and some of my work has been included in Etsy treasuries (like this one today). I haven't had very many sales but it's still keeping me occupied while I continue searching for a job.

I also finished a prototype for a shirt today, I'm thinking of starting another shop to sell clothing I've designed myself. The shirt I've made is a peasant blouse with a drawstring neckline and sleeves, 6 copper colored grommets and cotton drawstrings. Since it's a prototype I used some fabric I've had forever but which I bought very cheaply, it's a crinkly dark sage green that I think is a cotton-poly blend (I haven't done a burn test to see). I like the crinkly texture the fabric has, I'll have to post and picture of it soon, I hope I can find a good source of a similar type fabric. It would work well for an undershirt for a medieval, steampunk or a regular shirt for everyday wear. It has potential. The next thing I want to work on will either be a vest, a skirt or a pair of knickerbockers. I'm drawn to the steampunk aesthetic.

So, way back when I was talking about posting a tutorial for making sock puppets like the one I made for the Ingrid Michaelsock contest. I'm going to go ahead and post it in parts and start right now.

My brother fixed our internet so I should be able to post pictures now without crashing the network and making my roommates grumpy.

I'm going to show you how to make sock puppets like these (the video was last minute improv so please excuse the lack of quality storyline):

Yay, the video upload worked without the internet dying!

Before you start chopping up socks you'll need some materials: a sock no one is going to miss, a hot glue gun, some light cardboard (cereal boxes work great for this), some acrylic paint, yarn for hair, buttons for eyes and some scrap fabric. Accessories can be made out of polymer clay (Ingrid's ukulele was fashioned out of it), paper, fabric, pipe cleaners or whatever you want. Feel free to change anything up, that's part of the fun.

The first thing I did was start with the mouth since my sock puppet philosophy is geared towards range of expression. Usually the only moving part of a sock puppet is the mouth with some bobbing or turning of the head so I wanted to make sure the mouth was really able to open as wide or narrow as I wanted. I figured I couldn't do much with the eyes or eyebrows so getting the mouth right was very important to me.

I put a folded in half piece of cereal box cardboard between my thumb and all my fingers (in the sock puppet hand stance, if you get what I mean) and guess-timated how wide I wanted the cardboard to be for my hand to be able to fit comfortably. I then marked the cardboard haphazardly while it was still in my clutches so I would know about how wide I wanted it and everything. After that I drew lines from the crease to the haphazard marks and decided on accurate and standard measurements to go on (so I could make a pattern in case I wanted to make more later) and making a grid.

I basically eyeballed the curves. All of that was a complicated way of saying I drew an asymetrical pill shaped thing that's folded in half for the puppet mouth.

This is how it looks in its pill shape.

It looked like this when I was done:

I traced around the mouth insert on some lightweight cardstock, I'll show you what that is for later. After that, I put the sock on and marked the little bit of overhang between my finger and socks with a pencil. I think it was about 1/4 of an inch. I then cut off that little bit (don't do that while still wearing the sock, it's not worth losing any fingers). The sock then looks like this:

Using the handy dandy glue gun, glue the sock onto the cardboard, don't worry too much about glue squishing past the sock fabric, it'll get coverd. When you're done it should look like this:

In my next post I'll show you what that cardstock copy I mentioned is for as well as how to do the mouths the way I did.

Socks and Sand...

My sister has been visiting so my attention has been a bit scattered but things have been happening. Oh, yes, THINGS. You know that sock puppet I was talking about making a tutorial for? Well...it actually won and they asked if I'd like to make one of her producer too. I figured I might as well, I had a lonely sock all ready to go. So! That made my day and I'll be sharing any new news on it later too.

Have a look, if you haven't already: Ingrid Michaelsock Winners
(That's my name on the grand prize winning sock! That's both weird and awesome.)

How cool are all the puppets? You can tell there was a lot of work into the second place puppet (it looks like a muppet and there's embroidery on her shirt! That's some serious detail going on.) and the third place puppet definitely showed creative use of household materials. False eyelashes probably aren't in every household but they make the puppet look really friendly and pretty as a puppet can be. Also, hair elastics for her glasses? Brilliant. Got to love all the details on the rest of them too, you can tell everyone had a lot of fun making these. I got a kick out of the idea to begin with, it's the main reason I entered. 

As much as I like my puppet I don't know how I won. Maybe it's the mouth...it's rather unique.

I made an awkward video with the use of my brother's digital camera of both of the puppets but I think I'll refrain from sharing it until they've done what they're going to do with the puppets. I don't want to ruin the effect. Plus, I didn't know what I was doing so it's very awkward.

One of the other THINGS was that my dad, sister and I went to the coast. We may or may not have gone specifically to go to this little out of the way restaurant (it's set up like an old school diner on the inside) for fish and chips. My dad had gone there before with a cousin of mine after they'd gone fishing out in the ocean and was really taken with their fish and chips. It was really delicious and they had 3/4 size pirate mannequins on the outside of their restaurant which amuses me greatly. They kind of freaked me out at the same time, though. I got my sister to pose with them, she thought they were creepy too but you wouldn't think it by her exuberant pose:

Afterwards we went for a walk on the beach and Chloe had a blast, I think she had my dad carrying about 10 lbs of seashells and rocks by the end of it and her pants were soaked up to the knees from the surf.

My enjoyment of the whole thing had a lot to do with how much fun she was having, that kid really does love doing stuff. I got my dad to take a picture of us:

After the walk we went to the Tillamook Cheese Factory were Chloe got to see how they make their cheese, I don't think she'd ever been there before. We also got ice cream and it was delicious. It might be gross to some but I think their white licorice ice cream is mighty tasty (it tastes like black licorice but I think I know why they don't make it black. That would be rather nasty.). They also have peppermint ice cream which was my favorite and always seemed hard to find anywhere else. It was a great little trip.



Inanimate object appreciation.

Indispensable tools. If I did not have these I would be emotionally distressed.

Pliers.

Seam ripper.

Needles of various sizes and uses.

Thread.

Mechanical Pencil. (I'm addicted, thanks Dr. B)

Clear 2x18'' ruler in 1/8 increments. If it wouldn't be so crowded I'd almost love a 1/16 one. I feel disloyal saying that though. (Also addicted to these because of Dr. B)

Chalk wheel (the Clover brand one specifically. I have one in white and one in blue.)

Embroidery scissors. I've only had them for about a year but I seriously don't know how I functioned without them. Great for itty bitty thread cutting and maximum close up snipping control.

Sharp sewing scissors. My first pair of sewing scissors were actually my great grandma's (actually, so was my first sewing machine) but they were really old and I think I didn't know enough then to not use them on paper or whatever I needed to cut. They were dull as all blazes. Hellishly so. I got new scissors my sophomore year in college and...it was like the heavens opened up. Angels sang, even.

Rotary cutter. Just don't be tired or absentminded with them, seriously. Fingers can be lost and I really love my crooked skinny fingers and all the things they're capable of. You should love your fingers equally well. Yeah, I just told you your business. Still, appendages are best while still attached to your body -more often than not.

Music. Seriously. The kinds of Cd's that I can listen to completely through from start to finish ranging from chill to headbanging depending on my energy needs. Chill for de-stress, headbanging for getting things done with some oomph. I like oomph.

Even while I was at school and didn't take crafting or artsy stuff with me, I still took everything I listed. With the exception of the rotary cutter, the mat took up too much room and there wasn't a really good reason to have it if I had my sewing scissors.

For some reason I just felt like honoring my tools of the trade. I'd be crazier without them.

This is really the only reason you should call first...

Steps to answering the door to unknown persons, Sara style.

1. Assess and/or rectify the decency of your clothing as it pertains to proper fit and cleanliness. Possibly put on a hat.
2. Climb over furniture and things to get to the one window where you can see who's knocking and then climb back out.
3. If the identity of the knocker cannot be determined, locate something to defend yourself should it be needed.
4. Debate what would make a concealable (so you don't inadvertently creep out friends, family or harmless bystanders) defensive weapon that would still be effective. Bonus points if it's a crafting tool of some sort.
5. Determine if the knocker is still there (usually involves jumping to see through the top of the door).
6. Open door with neutral expression and hello ensuring makeshift defense is within easy reach.

I am aware I'm neurotic and paranoid. Also, kind of a hermit. However, this process does weed out people who don't actually need to talk to me or who I don't want to talk to anyway. You know, proselytizers, door to door sales people, people looking for directions or, like today, some random dude I don't know. Family and friends are always welcome...just know you might have to wait. But, *Simultaneous hair flip* I'm worth it.  Or you could just call and I'll skip everything except #2 or substitute #5 for everything.