Attempting to teach soft toy design

I mentioned earlier my choice to teach Soft Toy Design as a unit for Technology (Mandatory) this term. I try to ensure that I enjoy my job by making my job what I want it to be. Want to make puppets? Let's put on a Shapes Puppet Show. Want to design soft toys? Textiles time!

What an adventure. The kids had amazing ideas and were really enthusiastic (and that's always the best way to make sure they learn something). We researched, we discussed ethical design considerations, we sketched, we drew patterns, we learnt how to use the sewing machine.

Once we then started on the actual construction, some kids hit the reality wall of what they were trying to achieve. It doesn't seem to matter how many times you tell them to keep it simple. So some patterns underwent major editing, and some project were completely abandoned in favour of something more manageable. 

But this was good. In fact, this was a great experience.

The course is supposed to be centred around design. But it is hard to do that when students don't have a lot of skills, so most projects really focus on technologies and skills, with minimal design elements. I felt like this was real design. They faced the reality of design constraints, mainly time and skill restrictions. They evaluated and edited as they worked.

And in the end, like all good projects, I got sick, time ran out and we finished in a panic at the last possible moment!

The fellow on the right there is an adipose baby (Doctor Who), with hat and scarf (naturally).

I am extremely proud of what they managed to achieve and the lessons we all learned in the process. I had a fantastic time.

And we put some of our ethical design ideas into practice. This octopus is made from apron projects that previous classes either didn't finish or didn't want to take home. The straps and ties make excellent legs!

And to encourage them to finish all their theory work to a high standard, I gave the Zombie Bear to the best folio! And Violet Puffle and some Sock Snowmen to some runners up.

Soft Toy Spheres, Baseball-style

I've mentioned before, as I explored designing a pattern for a polar bear, I have a class doing Soft Toy Design as a unit for year 7 technology. Teaching is such a great way to learn! They've come up with all these ideas and I'm trying my best to find achievable ways to make them happen. One girl wants to do the head and body of her leprechaun as spheres.

I remembered reading Abby Glassenburg talk about baseball heads, so I said I'd try that out and we'd see if it was easy. I wanted more of a complete baseball though, minus the neck. So with help from this wikihow article, I drafted my baseball pattern.

Gosh I really enjoy drafting stuff like this. It takes me back to the good old tech drawing days of year 9 and 10.

I brainstormed some ideas for what I could make my sample sphere into. Pea? Tomato? Blueberry? Snowman? Caterpillar? Eyeball?

Ultimately it would be up to my fabric stash to decide. Blueberry/Ribena-berry it is. (Ok I could also have done snowman but it was already 8:30 by then and I like to get to bed early.)

Why do people who write tutorials never say "This is going to be fiddly and annoying to get it to line up" or "You will probably end up with more left on one side than the other"? I'm going to say it - these things might happen to you too. Be warned.

I decided to give mine safety eyes for the best of all reasons: because I happened to have some safety eyes. Also a little stitched smile.

"If your ball looks rather "squarish" ... you drew your two original circles too far apart." I did think they looked too far apart, but I went with my carefully calculated two thirds, like they told me to. Next time, round down lots. *sigh*

Still, he can be a slightly squashed blueberry.

Also, this was my first project using eco-friendly corn fiber stuffing from innergreen (and the fabric scraps, of course). The weird thing is that it smells like a foodstuff. Innergreen only sell in large quantities, so I bought mine through Tomni Design, from whom I also bought a rattle for my shapes cube.

My students are my most generous critics, they love everything I do! The blueberry was very popular, and was named "Violet Puffle". They are also very impressionable. I've brought in various examples to show them, and they suddenly say "I'm changing what I'm making!" There's a polar bear and a zombie and then the polar-bear kid today wanted to make a blob like this instead.

School Fabrics

Spoonflower is so awesome. I have a new addiction. It is so immensely weird and cool and satisfying to see something you imagined as a genuine real life fabric.

I picked up my samples from the post office today. I'd ordered the Pencil Pals before, my Donald-in-Mathmagic-Land-inspired entry into the "School Supplies" contest, but it failed to arrive. The envelope arrived, slit open at the end with no swatch inside. I told the lovely Spoonflower people and they gave me credit for it, which was super nice. I was happy to finally see it!

One thing I'm finding it hard to get the hang of is size. I don't know how big I want my design to print. This one I did in two sizes to find out. This one might be a more useful size.

Plus my plane shapes fabric swatch came too. There's actually another column of shapes that don't fit onto the swatch - the trapezium, parallelogram and ellipse. Sometimes you just can't stop the maths stuff from being in your brain.

Also two things which I won't show you yet. One will have to wait until I get it installed and one until after the present is given. Yay! Secrets!

These 3 designs are now FOR SALE at Spoonflower. I have a "Shop" now, apparently. You should check it out, it is to be found here. I'd better get it a banner because right now it has my name hovering in a big white box!

Soft Toy Design - Polar Bear versions 1 and 2

Inspired to experiment with soft toy design (a bit of a childhood dream), I started with getting a bit of practise and experience by sewing up some from patterns, including the Hedgehog and Puppy, and the Zombie Bear. My only recent attempt to make my own was the compost creature, who was a bit of an easy project in the sense that it was supposed to look like a pile of rubbish!

No offense intended, compost creature.

So for the next chapter, we start at school. I've been teaching Year 7 technology this year as well as maths. For the first 3 terms I taught the projects I was given, an electronic skills tester and wind chimes, but for term 4 I felt like getting out of the workshop, doing some textiles, and incorporating a teensy bit more design into the project. Since I wanted to explore soft toy design, I decided we'd explore together.

I've decided on a polar bear because we'll be providing the kids with plain calico, and I wanted to show them something in a white/cream colour to show that you can do a lot with calico.

After much sketching, here's my basic "2D" polar bear pattern shape:

I wanted to develop the pattern from simple to more complex to show the different options to the students.

Ok so I didn't clip my curves and corners, but it's a good start. I'm happy with the overall shape I drew, but I think maybe the legs and head could be fatter. But I want to add an underbody gusset anyway so I'll see how it looks once that is in. I'm following the lesson on Elements of Soft Toy Design on WhileSheNaps for this, if you want to get more detail on what I'm doing.

She says that it's a process, and designs usually need some adjusting. Glad to hear it! Mine sure does.

Apart from failing to sew on my lines properly (always a problem), I'd adjust a few things. I think my underbody gusset comes up too high for his little legs, especially at the back. I also think the foot shape needs to be rounded out a bit, as does the face.

His legs at the front have turned out well. Next step, a head gusset to round out that cute little face!