fuzzy side up, or slick side up? it’s a personal choice when it comes to a tongue.

we are still working on a post office box and will be updating soon on the “glorified sock puppet” pattern and our purchase of “muppet flesh” for dyeing grey and black! (hellloooooooo, nikki’s place.)

today’s tongues are sized perfectly for handpuppets, but for those wondering about eyes, horns, etc. — a video is forthcoming, which will show actual dimensions on handpuppet blanks, and suggestions for some of the more space-sensitive features.

making “glorified” handpuppets is a little more work than putting socks on hands, so anybody who wants to help make “blanks”, get in touch — krampuslauf.philly at gmail dot com.

also active in our house — two krampus-themed devil’s fiddles, one for ben, and one with a krampus hobby-horse head for béla. we’ll see how difficult these are to make, and see if it’s worth running a small workshop for making them this fall, but feedback is vital, so let us know if you are interested in these in particular. i am still serious when i say krampuslauf philly could utilize a “musical director”, but i don’t think the idea of it should scare anybody off — anybody with a percussion background who is willing to give a little creative input, and a little direction to a group on one to two occasions (once pre-lauf, once at lauf) would be massively great.

on other fronts, i have found THE perfect angel dress pattern for claudia this year (she still wants to be an angel, and she looked great last year but we bought her costume off-the-rack — it was some kind of “snow queen” halloween remainder — this year she is going to be twice as spectacular).

oh, and… today’s krampus-related purchase in our house? hundreds of black zip ties. think about it. if you dare!

groupthink in the krampuslauf philadelphia participants’ group on facebook brought out the idea of devil’s fiddles, and i think we should have some. as much as i’d like to make them available to the little people, they seem like they’d provide even more distraction to a process that does not necessarily need more distractions for those with younger and less multitasking brains (you’re already crossing the streets at dusk with a throng of monsters, do you REALLY need to be focused on your stumpf fiddle or should you maybe just concentrate on moving your own limbs? i certainly know MY kids’ limitations here.)

but maybe a few devil’s fiddles would be great for some of our adult krampusse? (and i’m not opposed for the kids, i’m just feeling this out).

i know that there will be at least one mask that uses looped audio this year, and that will be on our rear guard, so we want to think about that in relation to live percussion as well. but i’m starting to think, we almost need a musical director.

there’s a balance to be made between what’s easy to implement in a room full of kids with limited crafting skills, and a result that’s too off-the-cuff and can’t be enjoyed for long. i thought that this year i wanted to work with hand puppets — sock or otherwise — to use in the procession for kids (then at least they have their non-adult-holding hand warm). but, eh, googly eyes and fraying yarn and dripping glue… oh it’s all a bit blah, isn’t it?

that’s when i remembered this ridiculous thing we did when claudia was a baby, and we did ridiculous over-the-top things: we went to fao schwartz in manhattan and made a customized muppet.

pre-fab components + varied, but finite, choices = high quality and very memorable finished product (i think claudia will have her muppet, whose name is dek, for the rest of her life.)

so while the jury is still out for me on the base mechanism (socks are kinda narrow, but they are easy to come by, and cheap),

i am officially putting out the call to all needlework crafters to donate krampus components for our handpuppet workshop in november of 2012.

YOU CAN GET STARTED AS SOON AS NOW. look in that scrap bag, or through your odds and ends of yarn. make us a tongue! a pair of eyes! you can quilt some horns, or knit some teeth!

you could do one little thing. you could do a bagful! you could certainly let your friends know about this, and your little drop in the krampus bucket would give us a treasure trove of facial features in various forms of needlework — which kids could then choose from to make a MUCH nicer puppet than they’d get with just pipe cleaners and felt cut-outs!

working with volunteers, the workshop would be spent letting kids do the simple stitching to attach their facial features, horns and extra bits (hey, limbs? we can do limbs!) to their krampus puppets. or hats. heck, hats are good — i can easily get a bunch of cheapy black knit caps and we can have krampus hats with arms and legs too! (still not into putting masks on kids at dusk in december, while laufing. but hats would work!!)

i would absolutely promise to photograph EVERY puppet with it’s maker/owner so that anyone who participated could see where their bits went. and each child would go home with their krampus puppet the night of december 15th after the lauf.

the more folks who helped, the lighter the load for anyone else helping (look, i love krampus but i don’t need to knit fifty extra horns and tongues this season, my knitting docket is full), and the more variety of materials and therefore variety of puppets.

please spread the word! and e mail me (krampuslauf.philly@gmail.com) for an address at which to send us something, or if you have questions. start a bag of bits for us now! quilt a tongue, crochet a pair of horns, sew up a quick stuffed pair of arms with big nasty claws (use the idea of a heavy adult sock and/or a child’s size hat as a sizing tool). so awesome!!

it is one more mask that will be available for the wearing next december. other happenings here in philly: a paper artist is currently working on some prototypes for paper pulp masks via a tutorial gifted to us by our friends at Many Mouths One Stomach, in the hopes that this type of mask may be available to make here in philly via workshop in november 2012… we are also taking a maker-meeting about a mechanical prop, and have a student at RISD who is trying to organize some large-scale knitting ideas to incorporate here in the philly lauf.

but mostly we’re just hangin’.

thanks again to lorelei for getting us “krampus insider”. what a fascinating periodical! we told our kids that it was a summer camp brochure.

photo by tracy widdess, http://brutal-knitting.tumblr.com/

who will get to wear this in december?!?!?

krampuslauf ph…

By Finegar, Stopper, …

Book Preview

photographs, manifestos, and one very clever craft. seventy pages. your purchase will help fund maker workshops, cookies and cider for KRAMPUSLAUF PHILADELPHIA 2012.