St Richard's School, Kingston, Makes Pitchy-Patchy Costumes

Ideas to Try

Safety
Before you start, think about how to use this equipment safely. Will you need to wear safety gear? Check with your teacher if you are not sure about safety requirements.

Make a Pitchy-Patchy Coat
You will need: a clean hessian sack; plenty of scraps of material; small nail, scissors.
1. Cut head and arm holes in the sack, so that you can pull it over your body.
2. Cut the material into strips about 20cm long and 3cm wide. Do this as neatly as possible, making sure all the strips are similar in length and width.
3. Take a strip and fold it in half. Put a nail into the fold.
4. Push the nail through the stitches in the hessian sack and pull the strip of material part of the way through.
5. Knot the strip on the inside of the sack, leaving the loose ends hanging down on the outside.
6. Keep going until the whole sack is covered with fringes of material. You may need some friends to help you!
7. Trim any fringes that need it.

Make a Pitchy-Patchy Hat
You will need: one sheet of newspaper, plain paper, glue, paints, scissors, tape measure.
1. Take a sheet of newspaper and fold it in half. With the creased edge away from you, fold the two upper corners down until they meet. Fold up the rest of the sheet on either side to make a brim. Tuck in the flaps and tape them in place to give the hat extra strength.
2. Give your hat a coat of white paint.
3. Measure all the way around the brim of the hat with a tape measure.
4. Cut a strip of plain paper, as long as the brim and about 5cm wide.
5. Paint the strip in bright colours on both sides. It helps to hang it on a washing line to dry.
6. Carefully cut a fringe 3cm deep into the strip. Make sure you leave about 2cm uncut, so that the strip holds together.
7. Glue the fringe around the brim of your hat.
8. Add another fringe, just above the first one. The fringes should overlap slightly.
9. Keep building up coloured fringes until you reach the top of the hat and the whole thing is covered.

When your costumes are finished, why not hold a break-out? Add a few instruments from the kitchen for a traditional Jonkonnu flavour.

Make a Pitchy-Patchy Collage
You will need: a square of hessian, 20cm by 20cm; square of plain paper 20cm by 20cm; binding tape or piping/string; scraps of material; sequins; beads; ribbons; braid; buttons; wool and coloured thread; scraps of foil. Glue, scissors, needle.
1. Sketch out a Pitchy-Patchy figure on the plain paper. The links from this site can help you with ideas for shapes and patterns. Use strong, simple outlines, without any fiddly details. Try to use as much of the space as possible.
2. Look at all the materials you have to make your collage. Plan which materials you will use to build up different parts of the design.
3. Redraw your design onto the hessian.
4. Glue or stitch scraps of material to build up the picture. Start with large blocks of background colour and build up the details later.
5. If you are cutting material into strips, make sure they are neat and regularly sized, without ragged edges – this gives a better finished look.
6. Use the needle to push small strips of material through the hessian. Knot the strips on the back of the hessian to keep them in place.
7. Stitch on buttons, beads or sequins to mark out the smaller details or patterns. You could even stitch on scraps of foil to add sparkle.
8. Stitch or glue binding tape, piping or string around the edge of the square to get rid of any ragged ends.