Hand and Glove puppets

I don't do too many of these because I like the rod arm style the best.  But occasionally I do want to make this style.  With any luck, I will have need of one of these in the future for an interactive, puppet booth.  So, here we go...

First, we need a pattern.  I made mine by tracing my arm as shown.  Notice, the inside part of the arm angles in quite a bit.  This allows for a more comfortable movement.

Here is the pattern itself with a 1" x 1" grid on top of it if you just want to recreate it.

Cut out 2 of these (side a), flip the pattern over and cut out two more (side b).  Put one cut-out piece of side a and side b, together with the fur covered sides together.  Sew them together without much of a seam allowance (meaning sew close to the edge).  NOTE: You can either sew all the way around, or stop where the slant of the arm meets the body.  Going all the way is easier to explain, stopping makes attaching the body easier.

Now turn each arm inside out.

And now for the body

Here is the pattern I used.  The edge on the right is a fold line.  So draw out this part and flip the pattern over the 'fold' to draw the other half.  You will need two of these.

If you sewed the arms all the way around above, simply put these two pieces, fur sides together and sew the curve of the body and the slant below the curves together.  Leave the small top open for the neck and the bottom open for your hand.   Now sew the arms onto the body.

If you did not sew the arms all the way together above, the length you do not want to sew is equal to the length on the left of this pattern where it slants back in towards the middle.  Place the fur sides of the body together and sew just the curves.  Then sew one side of the piece of the arm that you left un-sewn (with the fur sides together) to the corresponding side of this piece.

It will look like this:

NOTE: The above picture was taken before I made a slight change to the pattern to make it as shown above.  The one pictured is too wide.  The pattern above corrects that and makes the body a much better fit than what is shown here.

Attach a head and you have something like this:

Enjoy!
Arthur Smith
PuppetsmithArts.com