Muslin as a Fleece/Felt Substitute?

[D'Snowth]

I was perusing through Jo-Ann today to get to see if they had the necessary fabric and materials I would need to build new puppets; I need basically three essential colors in fleece, and managed to find two of those colors in the perfect fleece (I know it's not antron, but it is really fuzzy and would hide seams very well).

I did find the other color I was looking for, but it was in muslin, not fleece or even felt for that matter - I've never worked with muslin before, and they only thing I can think of it being used for was the tornado in The Wizard of Oz...

I didn't get a chance to feel it as it was up on a top shelf, but it looks a lot like really fuzzy fleece, does anyone know if this would make a good susbtitute for fleece or felt? Or should I just get off-white fleece and dye it?

 

[Jinx]

No, muslin has no nap to it at all, and shows seams really well. It is not fleece-like at all! You'd do much better to dye a white fleece.

Muslin is about as basic a fabric as there is, and is quite inexpensive. I do use it for test patterns to sew something up to check dimensions, contours etc, but that's about it as far as puppetry use.

I use it mostly for constructing stage scenery.

 

[D'Snowth]

Good thing I asked.

 

[spcglider]

If it appeared to your eyes as fuzzy or nappy, it might not have been muslin but flannel. And I don't recommend using the same techniques as one uses on fleece with either. They're a whole different ball game.

-Gordon

 

[yetiman]

Muslin can be really effective for puppet clothing (since many shirts--especially those from before the 1900's-were made from it). I'm doing a medieval/rennaisance fox with it, and it works well. It can also be used for puppets where you want intentional seams to show (like ghosts or other scary creatures).

I really like the idea of using it to make patterns, too. I'll need to try that!