Making Puppet Kimono Patterns

Perhaps this title should be “Lesson Learned the Hard Way” because the lesson I learned is…you can’t use the same pattern to dress your hand that you use for the rest of your body. That’s the first part of it anyway… the second part would be: always stuff a glove puppet before sizing it. Because my first attempt at a kimono for Momotaro ended up: a) binding up the puppets movement and b) not looking right at the neck.

I was frustrated, as you can well imagine so I went back to the basics. Step one of the Basics is dig through your recycle bin for scrap paper. Then for your second step, you pin it on to the STUFFED puppet body. Third, you go around it and cut it down at places like the shoulders and under the arms. You should end up with something like this:

Then, you clean it up and put it all on a nice blank pattern page:

You cut it out of waste material and sew up the main seam…use a large stitch like this:

Now you put it on the puppet and pin it in to fit. Like this:

Sew that up and cut off excess. Now try it on the puppet and repeat the pinning, sewing and cutting until you get a workable pattern. Once you do…remove all your stitches and there’s a pattern!

Now you try it out with the real material.

I then recycled the pattern material for the green archery guard on the left arm. The hakama you see in the picture above, I didn’t have to do using the pattern method…possibly because straight-ness of a man’s hips and the straight-ness of ones forearms match.

Momotaro’s Army Part One

The Puppeteers (in order of enlistment):

Mylinda Sneed

Obasan and Monkey

Mylinda is a member in good standing of the Puppeteers of Puget Sound. She is a talented leather mask creator. She enjoys performing with the guild puppeteers in the Fremont Arts Parade. She has participated from the beginning at the Day of Puppetry events at the Pike Place Market each summer.

Beckett Arnold

Momotaro

Beckett is the current President of the Puppeteers of Puget Sound for the 2008 and 2009 years. He is an enthusiastic performer with the guild in the Fremont Arts Parade and the Day of Puppetry at the Pike Place Market. He enjoys making Uncle Duke’s Pop-up puppets which he learned at one of the guild meetings.

Amanda Leaverton

Gold Oni, and Dog

Mandy is a teacher at Kilo Middle School. She enjoys using puppets in the classroom as well as exercising her talent at voice acting while reading books to her students. She has participated in several puppet shows in the past. She also enjoys belly dancing as well as scrapbook making—Momotaro is unlikely to escape her scrapbook!

Jung Sook Kim

Narrator

Jung Sook is of Korean descent but born and raised in Japan, currently teaches Japanese at a local private school. She is a fan of the art of Puppetry and wants to learn more to use it in the classroom. She is also well known for her storytelling.

Ushio Tokura

Musician, Young Momotaro, Blue Oni

Ushio is pleased to be making his puppetry debut with Momotaro. Ushio is Jung Sook Kim’s son and is off to a good start in the art of puppetry. He is a student at Three Cedars School in Bellevue.

The STAAAGE

There is but one question at my apartment: where has the living room gone? Frank and I finalized the plan for the PVC stage and got the materials for it on Wednesday. Then Sunday, Mylinda and Beckett came over and we built it. While we were at it…my living room went missing. It seems too big…it really does…but for 5 puppeteers it might not be. Also…PVC can be shortened a whole lot easier than lengthened. So after the next rehearsal, I’ll know if it needs to come down in size or not.

One thing is for sure…I’m not planning on disassembling it and taking it to BCC twice a week. The rehearsals, therefore, must now be held at my domicile. On the upside…I can now feed my puppeteers…and I’ll no longer have to worry about parking or getting into the room at BCC. I had to do that because the person who arranged the room for us at BCC was on vacation and the room with the big sign that reads “Never lock this door” was locked three of the four times we went there. She’s back now to keep the door unlocked but even so…the stage is just too big. We must start practicing with it.

You’d think, with the stage as far as it is that I’d feel better but…looking at it…I see an overwhelming amount of things left to do. August is flying toward me.