No, not the boy (though I did play a part in his creation...) The chicken thing he's holding. It's a puppet. He's not really got the hang of it yet (no pun intended), and it gets easily tied up in knots when wielded by a three-year-old. However, he said to me, 'Daddy, your chicken is brilliant', which is good enough for me.He was *supposed* to help me make it, but didn't hang around for more than about 3 minutes at at time. He drifted back occasionally, but preferred his scooter to his crafty daddy.
The design is granny's. Well, I say it's hers, but I think she got it from elsewhere. She would often see things in shops, declare, "The Good Lord gave me the same hands he gave the person who made that, so there's no reason I can't do it myself", and then go home and make one. Great policy (unless you were the person who was trying to sell stuff to granny!) and one that I've sort of been nudged towards myself :)
The ingredients are:
some wood (either ply type or solid) that's probably about 7mm thick (haven't measured it)
A strip of wood for the 'handle' bit you hold it by
some cord (I bought some thickish stuff from Dunelm, but it has to be able to fit though the wood, and through the hooks)
a bunch of those hook things that aren't hooks, they're all-the-way-round. I used two different sizes because the cord was too thick for the smaller size (I also found they're flippin' expensive!)
Some thread.
You cut two feet that are trapeziums (trapezia?). Look here and imagine that line 'h' is one side, so it's got two right angles and two not-right-angles... Having said that, the picture there is a bit long. It probably doesn't matter too much. Try it with card first, if you're worried, and see how it looks. Each foot needs a hook in it, roughly central so it stays levelish when lifted off the floor.
The head is a pointy right-angled triangle. It needs a hole drilled top to bottom. You can probably see from the picture that it's near the right-angled side of the triangle, and you want the to of the head vaguely parallel with the floor.
The body is effectively a bigger triangle, but with the pointiest end trimmed off. This needs a hole drilled in it, about half-way up, near the 'back'.
You then attach the 'legs' to one foot, pass the cord through the body and attach the other end to the other foot. Don't tie both ends to a foot without passing the cord through the body - you'll feel like a right numpty. I attached mine by tying knots beyond the hook (as opposed to tying them to the hook) because the cord was thick enough to not then fit back through the hook. You may need to 'seal' the end of the cord (whip it).
For the neck, attach a hook to the front of the body (as in, sticking out of the front, not on the top or bottom edge of the body) Attach one end of cord to this (same method as for the feet) then pass the other end through the hole you've drilled (do it now if you haven't yet!) in the head. Glue this into place with about an inch to spare. Once it's dried, unravel the loose end above the head for the bird's 'comb' bit.
Lastly, get the little strip of wood. You'll need two bits, each with a hook at each end. Attach a hook at the back of the body, on the top edge. (You may also want to have one on the head next to the comb, though you could potentially just semi-whip the base of the comb and have a long bit of thread left from this...) Tie thread to the foot hooks and the body and head hooks.
Tie one foot hook to one of your 'handle' hooks, at a sort of sensible length. Tie the other one on, ensuring it's the same length.
At this point, it's worth joining the two 'handle' strips together. I attached the foot hook about a third of the way from the head end of the head-body strip. (Are you getting all this?!)
Now you can attach the last couple of threads, ensuring that the birds looks roughly right when the 'handle' bit is all level.
Play.
(And then, soon after, untangle it...)
Oh and the thread might occasionally come off the hooks ... Uh ... just tie it back on.
And if it's really tangled, just undo a couple of threads and that will make it easier to untangle...
