Let's move on with babyshower gift making – part #2.
Yesterday I was talking about making
gifts for a babyshower to the theme Noah's Ark. Here's the second gift.
First I had the wooden Ark, but it didn't get filled, though I spent some
thought on it. Here's the point - filling the Ark with animals
didn't feel right. But we had to have animals to correlate with the
theme. And so they come. On a blankie.
This project involved some
collaboration with kids. We made monoprints. I simply suggested they should make a drawing of an animal they like and want to draw,
but then repeat it, because Noah's Ark had them paired. And that's what I got: a pair of fish,
birds, sheep, giraffes, toucans, and unicorns. I had six kids
working on this project, aged five to eight, and we got twelve
drawings.
I could have found eight participants,
to make sixteen prints and perfectly fill the surface of sixteen
squares. Some Photoshop rendering prior to getting started with kids
to better visualise and find the right colors to mix proved quickly
that sixteen prints would make our blankie look busy and too
patchwork-y. A bit boring too. I introduced first simple squares of
solid cottons, matching the colours of monoprints, and after some
fine tuning and playing around how to complete the monoprints better
I've come up with those waves and playing elements on cords.
That sea element, referring to
a story of Noah, the greyish blue wave repeating at four squares holds the whole piece pretty well together, and bundles it. And this element induced the idea of making pockets. Playing pockets.
I filled two of them – I had a
leftover monoprint of a fish, so I made a soft a bit stuffed mini toy
(some padding added inbetween two layers of fabric – between linen backside and
printed surface). I had to sew an Ark, to thematically tie the
blankie to the wooden Ark. And it's attached to a cord, and can be
played with as well.
Yes, there was also some research on
Noah's Ark quilts, mostly on Pinterest, though less gainful than for
the wooden Ark. I've seen one, that had colored squares and white
animals in appliqué technique, cut of white plain fabric, and hand
applied onto the quilt. Pretty subdued in colors, with only different
animals and I quess it wasn't even brandmarked as a Noah's Ark quilt,
it was a simple animal themed quilt. But I loved the idea of colored
squares and white objects.
A couple of words on colours: we don't
know whether the baby is going to be a boy or a girl, because the
future mom-to-be doesn't want to know. They love blue, different
types of cold blue, and emeraud green, and they have a bit of red and
this soft pink around the house. That's where the color scheme came
from. Not a typical one for me, but as I said after playing around in
Photoshop, I've found the satisfying combination, both with „their“
colors and the way I loved it personally to engage and produce it. I
must say, I love this piece very much, and I hope it will bring joy
and happiness to the mom-to-be and her future baby.
