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Isn’t it often more fun to return to the basics among all the toys and entertain your little one finds during the holidays? What I want to say is about craft and creation. Felt puppets would be an excellent activity to make memories with your littlest friends with some sewing skills and lots of love.
Making your own felt toys teaches your kids to have fun, the value of handmade, and love the process.
Puppets are a great toy and a great way to beat boredom. The best part about puppets is that you don’t need a fancy theater to put on a show. Instead, you can create your theater using the back of a sofa, table, cardboard box, or even a sheet.
You can find the free Felt Hand Puppet pattern at the bottom of the article and download it to your computer.
Children can have a lot of fun making hand puppets and performing puppet shows. But rest assured that making a hand puppet is a reasonably simple effort. All you need are a few basic materials, some stability, and some instructions.
General Instructions for Making Felt Hand Puppets
- Penguin felt hand puppet is easy to make. It is sewn entirely by hand using basic embroidery stitches such as running stitch, back stitch, French knot, and whip stitch.
- I like wool blends better than acrylic felt because they last longer. However, for the felt puppet project, I used acrylic felt because it is less expensive and works well enough.
- The puppets themselves are small and, therefore, perfect for child-sized hands. Of course, the puppets fit my little adult hands too, but they’re tight for anyone with larger hands.
- These puppets may have been made for children, but they are not easy to sew. You will need to plant in some tight spaces. But don’t worry; I will guide you through all the steps.
- To better adjust the size, first, take the hand of the person who wants the puppet, separate the thumb and pinky finger, and draw around it, bringing it to the puppet position. Leave about an inch of space around it, and extend the bottom of your dummy form at least two inches below your wrist.
- Your first viewing will likely be distorted, weird, and asymmetrical. The goal here is to find the right size for your puppet. Fold it in half lengthwise, trim it a little and match the sleeves. Add another quarter inch for seam allowance if you think you need it.
- Leaving enough space is critical because, while the hands are pretty straight, they’re not entirely two-dimensional; you need to allow the hand and the puppet to move around.
Skill level: Suitable for felt sewing beginners.
Completion Time: Approximately 45 minutes. It may take more time on the first try.
Finished size: approx. 7′ (17 cm)
Helpful Note: Felt is a textile product in which natural or synthetic fibers are pressed together. Some felts are soft and can be used for crafts, but others are pretty stiff. The hard felts are strong enough to be used as construction material. In my works, I generally use eco-fi acrylic felts of 2 mm – 3 mm thickness. I did not experience shrinkage and elongation problems when washing eco-fi felts. Still, you may experience such issues with some soft and natural felts. For this reason, you can get to know the felt you use better with a little trial and error.
You can also read my article “What are the Felt Types” to learn more about felt types.
Warning: Children have a vivid imagination, so that they can bite felt food or toys. Young children, in particular, can suck felt toys by putting them in their mouths. So, remember to disinfect the felts before starting DIY felting projects. Also, when making felt food, remember the age of the child you are working with. Finally, because they might cause choking, little objects should never be offered to kids who still put things in their mouths.
Tip: I use a sewing needle as fine as possible when sewing felt toys. Because when you use a thin sewing needle while sewing felt, the points where the needles sink are not very obvious, and sewing felt is much easier.
Required Materials and Equipment:
- Penguin Hand Puppet template (You can find it for free below.)
- Felt: Black, white, pink, and orange colors.
- Embroidery thread: Black, white, pink, and orange colors
- Hand sewing needles
- Small scissors or embroidery scissors
- Needles and clips (Optional – To fix the template to the felt)
- Fabric adhesive (Optional)
- Tracing paper (Optional – for you to draft a pattern using tracing paper)
- Freezing paper (Optional – For cutting delicate shapes from felt)
How to Make a Felt Penguin Hand Puppet?
- Print the felt hand puppet pattern on the printer.
- Place the felt hand puppet pattern on the felt you will use and cut the felts into pieces according to the pattern.
- You can fix the felt pieces you cut to each other with the help of a needle so that they stay dry while sewing.
- Sew the eye and eyebrow part by hand with thread.
- Sew the felt pieces to form the figure onto the main penguin figure.
- Complete the back of the hand puppet by stitching it along the edges.
- Your penguin hand puppet made of felt is finished 🙂 I’m sure yours turned out beautiful too!
I hope you have a good time making a penguin hand puppet with this free felt pattern! This felt penguin puppet craft project can be done at home, in the classroom, or while homeschooling. Felt hand puppets are a great way to engage in learning by telling stories, acting, and practicing grammar.
Be sure to visit more on this website for free embroidery and sewing tutorials to help you sew my patterns.
I would like to see your finished felt projects. So if you want to share, please send me your photos, or you can specify them in the comment section. I welcome any feedback, as it is essential to improve my products.
More Felt Craft Projects: These are just some options for making felt toys. If you want to add more felt toys to your collection, try the following fun projects:
Felt Animal Keychain Tutorial & Free Pattern
Making felt toys are easy DIY projects that require minimal sewing skills. All you need is basic sewing skills and some hobby time to make felt patterns a reality.
All the felt toys I share and recommend to you are sewn by hand and do not require a sewing machine. However, if you want, you can, of course, also sew using a sewing machine. With these simple DIY felt patterns and instructions, you can complete your project in no time. Finally, you will have lovely felt toys to show for your efforts.
You can print the patterns on a more rigid material to make the felt pattern last longer. Then, you can draw the pattern by tracing the shapes on the felt using a ballpoint pen on the hard material. After removing the pattern, secure the felt before cutting to prevent the layers from shifting.
The felt pattern files that can be downloaded are in PDF format and A4 size. To view PDF files, you will need Adobe Reader. Adobe Reader is available for free download from Adobe’s website.
If you like larger or smaller items, you can enlarge or reduce the pattern size with a copier before cutting it out.
