HOME-MADE CRACKERS
Ellie Pearce, a printmaker and dressmaker who sews children’s clothing from upcycled antique linen, is making crackers for her extended family of 25, for Christmas day, as well as selling them online and in her shop, The Hackney Made Collective. “Aside from the waste, normal crackers are just so expensive,” she says. “They’re also filled with meaningless things, so I decided to make my own this year.”
She shows me how she fashions the crackers: first step is the cardboard tube, which Pearce made from recycled card and paper tape. “But you could also use an old loo roll holder,” she says. She measures a piece of antique linen that she has printed with a festive design to cover the cardboard tube, plus three inches of extra lengths at either end, stitching the fabric into a tube with a French seam. She then pushes in the cardboard tube into the middle of the fabric and ties ribbon outside the cracker to close off one end.
Now for the fun bit. Her friend Masako Sayer, who is part of the collective, has handcrafted the hats from Japanese paper, which we carefully fold up and put inside. Then she tells me to select a gift. I ponder a handmade mini face cream, or a wooden acorn bauble before settling on a tiny ceramic mouse that I know my daughter will love, made by ceramicist Naoko Hasegawa. We poke in a cracker snap, then tie up the other ribbon to secure the end.
“Crackers are a beautiful part of the table setting on Christmas day, but unless you spend quite a lot on them, they can look a bit tacky,” she says. “These are proof that you can make really gorgeous crackers that are meaningful and not wasteful: once you’ve made them you can refill them for next year.”
Antique linen crackers (£6 each/ £22 for four/ £28 for six with gifts from £2; thehackneymade collective.uk)