Goldilocks and the Three Bears Hand Puppets

I've always been a huge fan of giving kids puppets to play with as a way to encourage them to tell stories. My projects as of late have been focused on attaching them to books they can retell but bears and a little girl can easily morph off into a child's own story and so I don't find that idea at all limiting.

Goldilocks and the Three Bears has always been a favorite of mine. I loved the idea of civilized bears living in the forest. One of the first series I remembering reading on my own and loving was the Little Bear series. It would be interesting to know if the two families knew one another. You could see Little Bear and Baby Bear hanging out together.

This is another of my hybrid projects. I started with Maggie's Crochet Crochet Pattern Goldilocks Puppets PA861-R as I had the pattern from years and was determined to finally make use of it. I loved the heads and the clothing she made for the puppets. The hand puppet was another issue. I wasn't happy with the construction of the hand section and I had to decide what I wanted to do for that.

If you read my blog you know I'm not afraid of mixing and matching patterns to get the look I want. I found a free princess pattern for a hand puppet here which I had in mind for a castle project I'm working on for later. When I realized I needed a body for my puppets I decided to take a look and see if they were compatible. I had to adjust for the head size of the puppets I made but the body worked out really well. The bears were the easiest as they were solid brown for the bodies and their clothing items from the Maggie's pattern were added on once the body was complete. I had to play with the colors on Goldilocks dress to get look I wanted but I was happy with her outfit overall.

The Maggie's pattern calls for sport weight yarn and a g hook. I used worsted and a f hook as I am determined to use as much yarn as I have on hand to finish projects. I bought googly eyes that can be sewn a while back and never had a use for them until this project. The pattern suggest hot glue but if I can't sew or use saftey eyes I will generally just embroider. I just trust it more when kids are going to play with something rather than something that will be displayed.

That being said when I can avoid sewing I do so I used safety noses for the puppets since the snouts hide the post and connector thus preventing little hands from being scratched. They suggested a pom pom for Goldilocks nose I just crocheted one.