Despite my long-lived passion for puppetry and toy theater, I haven’t made many of my own puppets, and none of them were very sophisticated. Recently, however, all that changed when I ran into Andy Furgeson of Red Yarn Puppetry, a local one-man wunderkind whose folk music/puppetry/education performances are growing steadily in popularity in the Portland area. He needed a new character for his pantheon and no time to make it, so I stepped in to create Molly Cottontail, the female counterpart to his main character Bob Rabbit. I’m completely stoked that I managed to whip her out in just three days, considering that I’d never made a moving-mouth puppet before, and I hadn’t even busted out my sewing machine in a couple years. My dog loves her, too.
I started with measurements from the pre-existing Bob Rabbit and sort of winged the rest. Andy and I decided that she should be a lighter color than Bob and have rounder ears, but he left the rest up to me. To make her, I used faux fur, reclaimed upholstery velvet swatches, felt, deerskin, floral wire, found plastic sheeting, and corduroy. She’s stuffed with polyfill and rice, to make her feet heavy.
I had a blast making her, and now that I’ve learned how to make moving-mouth puppets, the sky’s the limit!
Coffey Break 