Fabric is the outer surface of a puppet — the skin, the clothes, the fur, the hands — and choosing it is a structural decision, not a decorative one.
Builders read four properties before they read the colour.
Stretch
Knits stretch, wovens don’t. A four-way stretch knit pulls smoothly over a compound curve like a skull. A woven will wrinkle and pucker over the same shape no matter how well you cut it. Skin gets knit; clothes can be woven.
Nap
Any fabric with a pile — fleece, fur, velvet, velour — has a direction. Run your hand across it: one way is smooth, the other resists. Cut everything the same direction or your panels won’t match.
Weight
Heavy fabric fights the foamFoam is the structural material most soft puppets are built ... More underneath. A dense upholstery velvet over a light foam skull will flatten the shape you spent an hour carving. Match the fabric’s weight to the structure’s strength.
Seam-hiding
The whole reason puppet builders obsess over fleece is that a fuzzy pile closes over a stitch line. Smooth fabrics — spandex, cotton, satin — show every seam, which means seams have to go where the design wants them, not where construction is easiest.
The common working set: nylon or polar fleeceFleece is the knit fabric used as the outer skin on most mod... More for skin, feltFelt is a non-woven fabric made by matting fibres together u... More for mouths and details, faux fur for hair and creature texture, spandex for tight body suits, and cotton or fleece for costume pieces.
The hack: buy a quarter yard of anything new before you buy three yards of it. Sew a scrap, stretch it over a foam offcut, and look at it under the light you will actually perform in.