One of the main aims of our Giant Puppet project is to involve as many people as possible in the making of them. Our first community engagement was at the Birstall Gala at the end of June. The Birstall Messy Church team set up a gazebo on the Sunday afternoon and invited people to come and weave strips of fabric into bird netting to make a robe for one of the King puppets.
It’s important that the clothing be lightweight and easy to dry out in case the puppets are out in the rain at an outdoor event. We were lucky to be given lots of scrap ripstop fabric (such as that used to make kites and tents) by the Rip Stop Shop in Hinckley so we used strips of this together with bits of light weight glitzy stuff.
Unfortunately it was a very wet and miserable afternoon weather-wise but we still attracted some soggy weavers and had some interesting conversations around the table.
