busy book: second page, three little pigs

for my birthday this year, my mom sent me both the pattern and the felt kit to make this fantastic set of “three little pigs” finger puppets.

i’m not usually into kits, but this one is sooooooooooooo cute (i actually love pretty much all of this shop‘s patterns.  check them out, aren’t they just so much fun?!) and the thought of not having to track down all those different colors of wool felt seemed luxurious.  and so, as soon as i was done with my grad class and had some homework-free time, i treated myself to a sewing session and made the whole set.  these will get tons of use from me at work because i recently discovered a fun, simple little song about the three pigs in spanish (done by ana lomba on her “hop, skip and sing spanish” recording.  i can’t find a link to even a sample of it online, so you’ll just have to take my word for it.) that is so catchy that the kids at the happy toddler’s daycare sing it to me whenever i drop him off (i do a spanish storytime for them twice a month and this is a favorite!).

the pattern and kit are really well done and if you have any interest in making a set of these for yourself, i’d highly recommend them.  there was enough felt in the kit to make one full size set and plenty of a few of the colors leftover to make some extra projects. and so… i was inspired to create a busy book page about these little pigs (y uuuuuuuuun lobo!).  here’s what i did to modify the pattern for my book page.

1.  reduced the pigs by 50%.  i wanted them to actually fit into their houses (and fit on llittle kid fingers), and i still needed to fit three houses on a two-page spread so… the pigs got shrunk.

2.  simplified the pattern.  the original pig pattern has a separate piece for each of the ears, each of the arms, an oval for the nose, and a contrasting inner ear piece.  building each pig this way allows for greater individuality and expression, but the pieces are already tiny and reducing them in half would have meant sewing with tweezers and/or a lot of frustration.  instead, for my pattern i cut out one ear and one arm and taped them onto the basic pig body pattern (ear on the left side, arm on the right).  for each pig, i cut out two of these shapes from felt, then flipped one over so that both ears and both arms were visible.  i sewed the pig nose on, then sewed the two pig-shapes together.  oh, and i also eliminated the clothing detail for the tiny pigs.  for the wolf, i taped both ears onto the body pattern (since he’s not symmetrical, i can’t flip him the same way) and used paint to add his nose and eyes.

3.  eliminated the stitched accents (nostrils, eyebrows, and those dang french knot eyes) and instead used a fine point permanent black pen.  *tip:  use the marker (or paint!) after you’ve finished sewing or your sewing machine foot will smear ink all over your pig.*

4.  the houses are only sewn on one side so that they open up like a book and you can put pigs into the houses more easily.

5.  added blue sky and green rolling hills for the houses to be built upon and attached everything to the page with long* grosgrain ribbons (except for the brick house which i sewed on to the page since it doesn’t get blown away by the wolf.  i also made that house a bit bigger to accommodate all three pigs.)  the hills then became pockets that all the be-ribboned pieces can be tucked into when playtime is done.

*ok, if you want to get really specific, the straw and wooden houses are on short ribbons that are just long enough to let the house get tucked over the top of the hill when the ribbon is fully extended.  that makes the houses a bit more stable.

note:  if you compare the brick house in the original pattern to the one on this page, you will also see that i did one not-shortcut detail on this page.  as the daughter of a home-repair expert, i couldn’t stand to see those bricks all stacked up on top of each other (that’s so unstable!) so i played around with alternating the bricks in a more traditional pattern.  although it didn’t take thaaaaaat much longer, i think i might eliminate all of the house detail for the next iteration of the page and just let the colors speak for themselves.

although i can’t offer this page pattern to you for free (i don’t own the copyright!), let me know if you really feel you need a pattern for the hills and i’ll put something together.  :)  and remember how i said the felt kit came with extra?  so far, i’ve had enough of the pink to make one full size and two half-size sets of the three pigs and i think i have enough to make one more full set of the half-size pigs.  this pattern could also make a cute “this little piggy” set!