Thank you all for your responses.

Subject: RE: Anyone here make hand-puppets?
From: Phil Cooper - PM
Date: 18 May 09 - 03:38 PM

"My singing partner, Margaret Nelson, makes hand puppets. We have photos of a couple on some of our cd's (you can see them at www.coopernelsonearly.com for examples). She even does workshops and classes on how to make them."

A found a couple after a bit of clicking around. Very nice and thank you for the link.

I managed to get it to work last night. Addictive, isn't it? I wound off the yarn last night and took it off the chair back this morning. Part of it kinked up but then unwound partially, but it seems to be alright. Is this normal? I suppose I had put too much twist in it.

My spindle has an eyelet screwed into one end of the dowel so I don't need a half-hitch to secure it. It took me awhile to figure out how to wind up the yarn onto the spindle. I've been winding onto my left hand and then through the eyelet onto my right hand, but it occurred to me that I might be able to wind it up onto my right hand immediately. I haven't tried this yet, so I'm not sure whether it will work.

The felting wool works fine, but it's rather expensive. It was cheapest at the store where I bought the spindle, but still not really cheap. I don't know whether there's anywhere in the town where I live where I could get unwashed wool. I'd try hand-carding, but I don't know whether I could get a pair of hand-carders here, either. I bought some wool which is apparently washed, but not carded, since the fibres don't run parallel. It also has a lot of foreign material in it; bits of vegetable material, I think. They use it for stuffing dolls and recommend it for felting the innards of three-dimensional felted objects. It works fine for that, but I think I'll sort it and pick out the foreign objects before I use it again. It's about half the price of the felting wool.

Of course, I'm sure I could get things through the internet. Thank you for the links, open mike. I'll take a look as soon as I get a chance.

I've bought a few simple tools for processing textiles there: a knitting fork, two knitting dollies, one with four prongs and one with ten, and a simple weaving frame without a heddle frame (I think this is the proper term) and a simple circular weaving frame. My idea was to try them all out and see whether any would be appropriate for the children. I've tried them all out, except for the circular weaving frame, and I think they would be, at least for the oldest one. The six-year-old (as of today) could probably manage the knitting fork.

The knitting dollies are nice, but I don't feel the need to own any, since I think it's easier to knit tubes on two needles or a set of dp needles.

Tonight I may try making salt batter (is this what it's called in English? "Salzteig" in German), i.e, flour, water and salt for modelling and baking in the oven. I want to make lots of little bricks for building Rapunzel's tower. The puppet I'm making is Rapunzel (and she requires a great deal of golden wool).