Chinese New Year Lion Sock Puppets

A couple of weeks ago I had the idea to create some sock puppets for the boys for Chinese New Year. As with most of my ideas that involve sewing, I design the project and pass it into the capable hands of my mum.  These adorable lions were based on the fluffy lion costume that is worn by dancers who act out the lion dance – a dance that is performed throughout Singapore and Malaysia at this time of year. We have been playing with them alongside reading this book about the lion dance.  You can read a review of this book from my post on South-East Asian Children's Picture Books:

I drew out the shapes on an A4 sheet of paper and used the shapes as templates for the different features of the lion.  The top three images are the parts of the eyes, the fourth image is the teeth and tongue and the fifth image is the ears.  For the ears, I doubled over the felt to make them stronger so they would stand up.  The nose was a yellow pom pom securely sewn on.  We had a few limitations in putting the sock puppets together as Dooey puts everything in his mouth (so googly eyes, glue or small parts of any kind couldn’t be used). 

All the felt pieces were sewn onto the sock and then strips of the yellow fluffy material were sewn around the edges of the eyes, ears and upper part of the mouth.  The material was very fluffy so I trimmed it down so it different overwhelm the lion's other facial features.  We also added 3 strips of braid that hung down under the mouth of the lions for a mane.  (In the lion dance costume, the mane is very subtle and strands of wool may have been closer to the original design.  We didn't use wool as they could easily become tangled in the hands of my young boys). 

What we used:

A pair of red socks

Black, white, red, orange and green felt

Yellow fluffy material (bought from Hobbycraft, 1 metre for two socks was just enough)

Different-coloured cotton (to match the colours of the felt)

Yellow pom pom

Golden braid