The Eyes
Lift the fleece on the head from the nose up. Use Super Glue to adhere the fleece to the styrofoam head just where the eyes will go. The glue may bleed through the fleece a bit, but if you centralize it, this will be hidden by the eyes later. Be sure to conform the fleece as securely to the styrofoam shape as possible - no bumps or empty space between foam and fleece.
Then glue the eyes into place. I used google eyes about 1" in diameter, but consider other materials including wood, felt or beads. You may also like to add lashes, brows, lids, or other features.
The Hands
Cut out two hands from the fleece. Make each hand double-sided so that it can be stuffed. You can do this by making four fleece hand patterns, but I found it most convenient to fold the fleece so that each hand had two sides still attached at the wrist.
Pay attention to the size of your hand patterns and keep in mind that the finished product will be smaller after sewing. Note also how many fingers you wish to give your puppet. I gave my Abominable Snow Muppet four fingers on each hand.
To be done with each hand: Neatly sew around the fingers, leaving a space of about an inch at the end. Tie off your thread and turn the fleece hand inside-out so that the stitches are hidden, as one would do in making a pillow. Use a dowel to lightly poke inside the fleece hand and fix the fingers.
Fill the hands with soft foam, polyfil, or fabric. I used slivers of soft foam (the same that I'd used in the jaw) and discovered that this allowed me to position the hands after they were closed - the fingers could be slightly curled and looked more visually interesting. Pack the filling in firmly, but be gentle with your stitched fleece.
Before each hand is filled, decide whether you would like to be able to operate one or both of the puppet's hands with dowels. I chose to do this with both hands, so for each one, I prepared a thin wooden dowel of about 15" long.
For safety, I capped off one end on each dowel with electrical tape. On the opposite ends of the two dowels, I tightly wrapped strips of soft foam and secured them with tape. These ends rest inside the hands, and adding the foam prevents the dowels from slipping out or tearing through the fleece.
Insert these ends of the dowels into the hands and stitch each hand closed, sewing extra securely around the dowels.
As you do all this, be sure that the puppet has a "left" hand and a "right" hand - i.e. that the fingers are pointing correctly when the dowels protrude from the bottoms of the hand shapes.
The Torso & Fur
I'm not going to go into extraordinary detail about how I stitched the white fur around the puppet, because if I ever do a similar project, I will likely do it differently.
As you can see in the second photo of this post, the purple fleece torso is an extension of the fleece from the jaw. It's essentially a tube that the puppeteer's hand fits through and allows enough space to situate one's hand inside the jaw. The fur provides the bulk of the puppet, giving it shape and weight (a little too much weight here, hence the change I would make in the future). You could, of course, do something similar with stuffed clothing.
I attached the fur of the torso and the fur of the head separately, and this worked well. I wrapped the purple fleece tube with a doubled-up sheet of the fur and evened out the bottom edge. I sewed with white thread along all flaps. Then I covered the head with another doubled-up sheet of fur and stitched it directly to the purple fleece on the top of the head and to the white fur at the neck. I sewed around the jaw, including at the chin, but made sure that it would not hinder the movement of the mouth.
Here is the puppet with torso and arms completed, but with the fur on the head not yet secured. At this point I briefly considered renaming him General Washington.
The Arms
I cut two long strips of the same soft foam I'd used in the hands and jaw. I rolled one up inside a sheet of the white fur fabric, temporarily pinned the ends, and sewed it together with white thread. Then I sewed one end to the puppet's torso and one end to the corresponding hand. Repeat with the second srip of foam to make the other arm.
And that leaves us with our finished puppet:
MATERIALS
8" styrofoam sphere
Knife or scraper for foam
Scissors
Needles and pins
Thread: black (to match felt mouth) and colors to match exterior fabrics (for mine, few if any stitches on the purple fleece are visible so I used only black and white)
Black felt: one 12" sheet should suffice
Google-eyes, about 1" each
Super Glue
Soft foam or batting to stuff hands, arms, and/or body
Wooden dowel(s): I cut one long dowel of about 35" into three pieces of about 16" and 16" (for hands) and 3" (for nose)
Foam ball for nose, about 2" diameter
1 yard of "furry" fabric
1/3 yard of stretchy fleece: I would instead recommend using one yard of stretchy fleece and adding fur, hair and/or accessories as desired
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