Elena Deng – Push/Pull Objects

Thoughts:

Overall, I am happy with how my forms turned out for my first time sewing. At first, I was frustrated because I had cut and drawn out a sphere on a piece of fabric but because I had sewn it incorrectly, the piece became a sort of starfish looking shape. Through this experience I decided to be more meticulous in my plan for creating an object.  I knew I wanted to explore creating a cactus as well as play with color so I began to form a mental image in my head. I had some threading issues throughout the process; however, I am excited to try sewing again after learning how to thread a machine properly.

I enjoyed darting and baffling the pieces that I created and am looking forward to using more of these techniques in the future. I hope to play more with color and seeing how that can contribute to my form: something I discovered with my final object.

First form: A yellow baffled sphere!

At first, I was really drawn to the textured fabric and wanted to see how it handled being part of a bulbous form. I wanted to start off simple so I simply sewed a sphere and baffled it with two circular pieces of felt. My first attempt with the sphere failed miserably (mentioned above) however after learning from that experience I feel like I improved from the craft of the first attempt. 🙂

 

Second form: A cactus!

In general, I love organic forms. I knew that this project was about creating simple forms and altering them–however I really wanted to attempt creating a natural form from a geometric form. I had fun darting the cylinder and creating the prickly bits for the cactus. However I would want to improve my craft a bit more with the top and the edges along the form because I didn’t plan the how the pieces would fit together to the degree that I should have.

 

 

Third form: Swirled Cylinder!

Though this was the piece that I planned the most initially, it took the least amount of time to create. At this point, all the poly-fill had ran out so I used the paper I used to trace the template on as a sort of filling for the piece. I also included some of the blue felt scraps to play with the see through fabric as well as the see through fabric itself. Once there is more poly-fill I hope to test out how that would look with the sheer pieces as well. Through this piece I discovered I also want to play with using different materials within my pieces in the future.