Push/Pull Part 2 – Victoria and Stephanie

The first step of this project involved looking at both our stuffed objects and thinking about their differences and similarities. Both of us started with cubes as a basic form so we decided that our large inflatable would start with a cube. We took inspiration from the tail from Victoria’s cylindrical form.

We both thought the ridges from the example inflatables were interesting so we wanted to incorporate that into the cube. The shape and colors were inspired by Stephanie’s sewn form and this image from the book Oh, the Places You’ll Go by Dr. Seuss

We planned on putting our inflatable in the Hunt basement by the photo booth. Since the photo booth area was a large square, we thought our cube would fit well there.

The first step in creating a 5′ inflatable cube was measuring and cutting six squares then sewing them together. Measurements took much longer than expected because drawing long straight lines and right angles was difficult with a large shape. We also had to make sure each side on each square was marked correctly before using the sewing machine. Nearly everything in this project took longer than expected due to unexpected obstacles. It was difficult to see the overall design so each drawn line and cut needed to be checked multiple times. Even sewing a straight line sometimes took a long time we had to push so much material through the sewing machine.

The first face was decorated with colorful ridges. We used the technique from class where holes were cut into the nylon to let air into the ridges. The other face was decorated with tubes coming in and out of the cube.

In the end, we ended up with a seemingly plain cube that contained colorful secrets you had to walk around to see.

If we were to do this project again in the future, we would do more planning in the beginning before sewing anything together. We sewed most of the cube together before adding decorations. Some of the difficulties we faced could have been prevented if we finished designing each face before putting the cube together.

We had a lot of fun making this inflatable and observing other people’s creations.