The campaign is in full swing! All of Jack’s friends came out to support him: his beloved pie backed him right away, Hickety Pickety thought him a fine gentlemen, Jack Sprat wouldn’t think of voting for anyone else, and his wife made the lovely signs. So now it’s your turn. Get the word out–Little Jack Horner’s got the prettiest plum pie in the Holiday Smorgasbord! Don’t sit in a corner, go vote!
little jack horner sat in a corner,
eating his christmas pie:
he put in his thumb, and pulled out a plum
and said, “what a good boy am I!”
Here he is pulling out the plum! I was really nervous about tackling the pie and the plum, but surprisingly I didn’t have problems with either (problems with my sewing machine that resulted in very loud swearing, yes). The pie plate has pintucks all around and is stuffed with foam and cotton batting. The pie is a natural linen lined with a purple and red print that I have ridiculous amounts of. I don’t normal like purple, but I thought that it almost looked like the inside of a plum pie: all red and purple and oozy. The pie is just gathered and hand sewn to the plate. I have no idea where this idea came from, but I think it actually looks like the crimped edge of a pie. And as I used to be a baker, I am especially proud of it. The pie also has a little pocket on top to hold the plum. I sewed the pocket in and then made a little bias tape and finished it with that. It looks okay, but I think there are neater ways of doing something like this (putting an invisible pocket not on a seam) that I don’t know of yet. I made the plum from this beautiful deep purple (really, I never liked purple before this) cotton that feels very fine and soft. A half yard of it cost me a whole quarter at my local thrift. It has a little elastic at the bottom to fit over Jack’s thumb and to make it more plum shaped. The plum is stuffed a little and lined with the purple and red print as well. Except for the pie, I stuffed everything with the new eco- friendly fiberfil which is made from corn. It worked pretty well, though I’m not the world’s best stuffer so I don’t trust me. The package doesn’t have any washing directions on it, so I have no idea if you can wash it or not, but you must be able to right?
All in all, I’m really happy with how everything turned out. When I started to make toys from nursery rhyme characters I had this idea that they should be slightly interactive–not really the right word, but you know what I mean. So, Jack, the pie, and the plum are all separate and you can act out the rhyme (if you are so inclined) or just put them in different poses on display. See the whole rhyme in pictures on my flickr page. As I mentioned before, this is my entry for the Softies Central Holiday awards (holiday smorgasbord category). So go look at all the fabulous entries right now!
jack sprat could eat no fat
his wife could eat no lean
and so, betwixt them both
they licked the platter clean
Here they are staring at the clean platter. The platter was kind of an afterthought actually (and I think it’ll probably end up as a rug in the dollhouse, because it looks more like a rug anyway) but it has given me a couple ideas for the dish who ran away with the spoon. Jack and his wife turned out well–not quite as I imagined, but good enough. I have this silly notion that if I can come up with the idea and draw it, then I can sew it. When really I’m not a very experience sewer and even less experienced when it comes to soft toys. These two, I think, are closer to dolls than to soft toys (if there is such a distinction). And dolls are hard: little limbs are hard, heads are hard, and hair is pretty much impossible. I wanted Jack’s wife to have a little, neat bun, but instead she has a mass of wool dreadlocks rolled into a ball at the back of her head. And the bonnet I made (pre hair) is a bit too small, but it matches her outfit–and it’s reversible–so it stays.
On the other hand, I’m very pleased with how Jack’s hair turned out. Granted there isn’t much of it, but it turned out just as I pictured, so I’m happy. He is a little lacking in the accessories department, so I think I might whip him up a little vest to wear to dinner.Just one more picture, so you can see his wife’s apron. I based it on one of Amy Karol’s aprons in Bend the Rules Sewing and I’m happy to say her patterns are just as fabulous in teeny tiny sizes.
If you’d like to see more pictures of these two you can jump over to my flickr page. Thanks for stopping by. Have a great day!
hickety pickety my black hen
she lays eggs for gentlemen
gentlemen come everyday
to see what my black hen doth lay.
This is the first of a series I hope to do. Obviously it’s based on the nursery rhyme “Hickety Pickety.” Though I recently discovered that there are two more lines: Sometimes nine, Sometimes ten; Hickety Pickety my black hen. So I guess some eggs are in order. I’ve always liked nursery rhymes, but now that I say it, it sounds strange. My mother would read to me all the time when I was little–from the big, black and white checked Mother Goose book. And because my sisters are much older they had babies when I was the perfect babysitting age and so I read to my nieces and nephews from the same book. And then came high school and college and cigarettes and boys and I forgot completely. But having kids made me remember how lovely those short, little verses can be. They aren’t as intricately constructed as Lewis Carroll’s books and poems, though he did have his way with some (queen of hearts, tweedledum & dee), but the language is still silly and bizarre. And they haven’t been boobified by disney like the fairy tales and really they couldn’t be–some are strangely violent. They are an odd mix of drinking songs and counting rhymes passed down orally. Which I think is fantastic.Jack Sprat and his wife are in the works, but as of this moment are headless.
