Have you
ever seen a fabric that made you want to reach out and touch it because the
material was so interesting? As you
touch the material is creates a physical sensation in your fingers because it’s
soft or bumpy, scaly like an animal etc.
The texture of the fabric makes you think of an experience you have had
in the past or creates an emotion in you and you don’t understand why it makes
you feel that way. The color, shape,
thickness, and how the fabric drapes can also have the ability to affect a person’s
emotional experience with a piece of fabric.
All these things can affect our daily lives from what we choose to wear that
day, the type of blankets we like to use when we sleep, the towels we like to
use after a shower, and the furniture we choose, even the car we want to buy.
How a
fabric makes a person feels is important to most people whether they think about
it consciously or not. For one of my
nephews it is an even bigger deal to him than most people. He is very directly aware of how fabrics make
him feel. He is autistic and is so aware
of how a material makes him feel because his brain actively processes so much information,
information most of us don’t consciously think about. If the fabric is has too
much information/emotion in it he can be overloaded. Due to the awesome abilities of his brain
making gifts for him or shopping for him is challenging. It is not something that I can do last
minute. Instead of thinking about what
he needs like socks, underwear or a coloring book. I first try to find out what
is currently into. Then I spend a lot of
time thinking about what materials I have that is similar to the things he
currently likes. In particular how those
materials would make him feel. This can
be hard since he does not always communicate in verbally. However, the thing that is great about his
none verbal communication; walking away from something he doesn’t like, the
types of things he likes to carry around, the animals he likes to pet, gives me
a glimpse into what kinds of things he may be ok with in a material. I also think about all the discussions I had
in my art classes in college about how a material affects a viewer when I decide
on using a material.
Despite
all my conscious, very deliberate thought that goes into making a present for
this nephew it is nerve racking. I will
admit I do want him to like what I make for him but the thing that is far more
important is that I don’t make something for him that is emotionally/mentally painful
to him.
In
thinking about my nephew I was also thinking about how he is going to school
again this year. He will be at school
all day this year, which means lunch time.
I thought about how he may not be comfortable eating at school. It occurred
to me that if I could make him a lunch box in the shape of an animal that he
likes, he could play with it and hopefully this will help him stay at the table
maybe even help him be comfortable enough to eat at school. I know that may be “too much of a stretch”. So my husband asked his sister what animals
he likes right now. There were quite a
list; dogs, lions, dinosaurs and elephants.
If there is an animal with an interesting skin texture to it, it’s definitely
elephants. So off I went designing and
redesigning and three days later I started construction.
Step#1
Material selection- I selected
fabrics that are soft, almost worn because if a fabric is too soft it can be
irritating when tired. I also picked
fabric that had some spandex in the blend so that if he chooses to pull on it,
it will be able to stretch and still retain it shape when he lets go.
Step#2
I seam ripped apart the fabric
pieces.
Step#3
From pictures I had found of
elephants I drew out a pattern that would show the distinctive parts of an
elephant then cut out the pattern pieces.
Step#4
I cut out all the pieces of the
liner for the inside of the elephant.
Step #5
I cut out thin layers of badding
that match the shape of the lining.
Step #6
I stitched down the jersey fabric to
the interfacing where a person could see between elephant’s legs.
Step#7
I pinned the gray fabric to the arc
of green fabric, sewed the curve, and flipped the gray fabric over for
manipulation.
Step#8
I manipulated the fabric to give the
impression of wrinkles like an elephant. I hand stitched these “wrinkles” in
the place that looked visually the most relaxing using gentle movement like I would in an fine
art composition to slowly move his eyes and hopefully create a desire to stroke
the “skin”. However, I did not put all the texture in that an elephant’s skin
would have on it. Here is why, if it is
too textured it could be sensory overload. I put in enough(I hope) to make him
want to touch it, run his fingers along it but not so many that it creates the
desire to aggressively crush the skin in his hand. Think about how an elephant’s skin looks, it
looks like you could grab whole handfuls of the skin in your hands and not hurt
it. After hand stitching it down to the
interfacing then I machine sewed it down on the edges for additional strength. It
repeated this technique for all of the parts.
Step #9
I took the parts I had cut for toe
nails and folded over the edges and pinned them in place. Then I hand stitched the fold down. I chose
to hand stitch here because the edge was too small for my sewing machine.
Step#10
I hand stitched down the toe nails in place on
top of the “skin”.
Step#11
The Tail- I looped black yarn onto a
strip of interfacing then pined it down. Then I hand stitched it down.
Step #12
I pinned the yarn to one of the
pieces of the tail then sewed it down.
Step #13
I laid the two right sides together
and tucked the yarn inside the two pieces. I pinned them together and sewed
them. Next I flipped the two pieces right side out.
Step#14
I pinned the two pieces of the trunk
together with right sides touching, sewed the two pieces together, and then
flipped the trunk right side out.
Step#15
The Ears- I pinned the two pieces of
the ears together with right sides touching, sewed the two pieces together, and
then flipped the ears right side out. Then I repeated this with the other
ear. Next I folded a small part of the
ears at the top then stitched it down.
Step#16
I pinned all the pieces of the lining
together then sewed together all the pieces of the lining together.
Step#17
I pinned the pieces of the outside of
the elephant that make up the back of the elephant where the tail goes to the
sides then sewed it together.
Step #18
I pinned together the part that
would be the front of the elephant with the ears placed facing inside of the
right sides of the fabric that are touching. Then I sewed them together.
Step #18
I pinned in the outside of the bottom
of the elephant then sewed it together. Then I flipped it right side out.
Step #19
I then pinned the part that would be
the lid to the lining and the outside of the elephant lunch box. Then I sewed
lining lid to the lining box and the outside lid to the outside.
Step#20
I then pinned the tail to the back
of the elephant. Then I hand stitched down the tail to compress the fabric and
hold it place better than pins would do.
Then I machine sewed it down.
Step#21
I then pinned the trunk to the front
of the elephant. Then I hand stitched down the trunk to compress the fabric and
hold it place better than pins would do.
Then I machine sewed it down.
Step#22
I then took two button; two large
white ones for eyeballs and two smaller black ones for pupils. My nephew likes to play with buttons. Then
hand stitched them down to the front of the elephant where I was trying to
create a face.
Step#23
Then I took the lining and placed it
inside the lunch box. I then pinned the
two pieces together. I then hand stitched them together.
Step#24
I took white satin ribbon and folded
them over the edges I had just stitched together then stitched it down over the
top.
Step #25
At this point the two borders that
were now created on the inside and the outside of the lunch box that were
created by the white ribbon was a good texture but was visually too sharp. So I
added a grey blanket binding over the top of the edge of the white ribbon on
the outside and a blue blanket binding over the top of the edge of the white
ribbon on the inside. This softened the
outside edges of the outside of the elephant and gave the impression of
cleanliness on the inside.
Step#26
I debated the whole time I was working
on this elephant lunch box on the shape of the trunk. Should it be left uncurled so that he could
also carry it by the trunk like a rope?
Or should I have I curl under like its eating? Or should I have it
curled up like its spraying itself with water? Or should I have it curl its
trunk in a circle like its being playful?
Eventually I decided to curl it playfully so that it would be less
bulky. Then I hand stitched the trunk in
a curl.
Step #27
Another thing I debated for a while
with myself was how to fasten his lunch box closed and how much to have it
close. I thought about Velcro, buttons, clips, and zippers each of which had
reasons I thought wouldn’t be good. I
eventually decided to use belt buckle fastening system. That way he could get into his lunch without
having to open it but it should still hold his lunch in the box. So we bought a
soft and sturdy belt from a thrift store that was a good color. I then cut the two ends off for a fastening
and used the rest of the belt for the handle.
However, I found after stitching it down that it was fraying. So I used
a lighter I borrowed to carefully burn the edges of the former belt to seal the
edges closed.
Materials
Gray jersey/spandex fabric- a jacket that was
missing some buttons0.00
White pleather lining- left over from someone else’s
project 0.00
Badding – left over from another project 0.00
Grey thread- left over from someone else’s
project 0.00
White ribbon -left over from someone else’s
project 0.00
Grey blanket binding- left over from someone else’s
project 0.00
Blue blanket binding- left over from someone else’s
project 0.00
Black yarn- left over from another project 0.00
Interfacing- from the inside of the jacket with the
missing buttons 0.00
White and black buttons -left over from someone else’s
project 0.00
Belt- from a thrift store 2.50
Total Cost
2.50
