Lunchbox the Elephant

Lunchbox the Elephant

  

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