Putting Fabric to Foam

[Phantom]

I have a problem with my fabric “puckering” when I roll it over onto the mouth plate. I cut the fabric on a straight line approximately ½ inch past the mouth opening. Any suggestions?

Ben

 

[officermom]

Ben--

You may need to use a smaller "seam allowance" or, depending on your fabric, you may need to take triangular notches out of the 1/2 inch "seam allowance" to allow it to lie flate against the base of the mouthplate.

If you're using contact cement, pull your fabric over the "lip" and onto the base of the mouthplate. Smooth out as many of the "puckers" as possible and make the remaining "puckers" as small as possible. Next, using scissors, trim the "puckers" flush with the mouthplate. You will see that the pieces you remove are small triangles. The last step is to flatten the two cut edges, making the fabric appear as seamless as possible.

Hope this helps.

--melissa

 

[Fozzie Bear]

This is why I like to use fur! LOL! If it puckers, you just trim the fur level.

I have a Mahna-Mahna puppet I made for me where I just tucked the fur under and can send you a pic via email if you write for it FozzieMup@aol.com and put "Mahna-Mahna Pic" in the subject line.

What I did is that I put a dot of glue at the inner corners of the mouth, and a dot of glue at the center-most part of the lip and folded that under. I did one side seperately from the other (ie, not one long continuous line of glue, but a dab here and a dab there) until it was glued down. You'll like the results that I had on the Mahna. However, when making my character Muley, he has fur which I used the above technique.

 

[Phantom]

Thanks.

Ben

 

[Buck-Beaver]

I posted this to the Puppet Lips thread as well, but there is a pattern for doing this sort of thing here.