Project Puppet Fleece Pattern?

[shtick]

Can I use the PP fleece pattern for fur as well?

 

[Buck-Beaver]

I don't see why not.

 

[TheCreatureWork]

I have done both the pin head and the glorified puppet pattern in fur. they both work out great. You can check out my work in the Gallery section on the Project Puppet Website.

 

[puppetsmith]

Hey shtick! I wouldn't recommend it. At least not without some adjustments.

The fleece patterns were designed to take advantage of the fleece's ability to stretch. Most fur doesn't have a stretch to it. They do make a furry fleece these days that does have some stretch to it and I believe some of our customers have used it with the fleece patterns and it appears (at least from the pictures) to have worked just fine.

You probably could scale the patterns to use non-stretch fur. My guess, maybe 90% of the original foam head OR scale the fleece pattern up 110%. Only a guess, you may have to work with that a bit.

Another thing to consider is the direction of the nap of the fur. The fleece patterns are the typical two piece mirrored style of patterning. You may have to splice them up to get the direction of the fur going where you want it in the places you want it.

Of course, you can always make a custom fur pattern! Swazzle's tutorial - http://swazzle.com/blogs/2005/12/bark-production-journal-fabrication_20.html - should prove helpful in that department. Use a non-stretch fabric, like a broadcloth, to pattern your pieces. Pin and cut just like Sean shows in the tutorial, only don't sew them together. Take them off, trace them, and presto!...you've got a fur pattern.

Hope that helps!

 

[TheCreatureWork]

When I traced out the patterns on fabric, I cut to the sewing machine line even though I was sewing by hand.

 

[puppetsmith]

Oh yes, I should clarify. In my previous post I'm referring to the fleece covering patterns that are available for the first two Forma Series patterns - the Rotondo and the Punto.

The Simple Series patterns, though a stretch fabric is recommended, fur will definitely work with no problems.

The reason for the difference lies in how the different patterns were designed. The Forma Series patterns rely on the foam to create the shape of the head - the fleece just covers the shape. Whereas, the Simple Series patterns' head shapes are formed by the way the fleece or fur is sewn together - the foam skull just fills out the sewn shape.

Hope that makes sense.

 

[Buck-Beaver]

I like Tom's idea about using the seam allowance to "scale up" a fabric pattern, it might be fun to experiment with using that as a rule of thumb.

I find it's a good idea if you're figuring out patterns for fleece or fur that is expensive is to first work it out first with a similar, cheaper fabric. Of course as Bezalel says you do have to take in to account the amount of stretch, so using spandex in place of fur won't help very much.