Studio Project 01: Sculpture Sampler 🎨 🐘 🎒
Title: “Dumbo”
Materials: cotton T-shirts (5 XXXL and 3 XXL), felt sheets, plastic buttons, wool roving, thread
Dimensions: 17” L x 7” W x 14” H
➡️ I had so much fun creating this little backpack! It was so magical to transform something from a sketch on my iPad to a physical object. It took a lot of time, especially since I used my own T-shirt yarn to make it, but it was worth it! I’ve never created anything like this before, and now I want to make more crochet backpacks! 😂
Recipe for Interesting Art 🎨
1️⃣ Something we’ve learned in class: I used the basic crochet techniques we covered in class, including our flat seaming crochet and surface crochet. I also incorporated needle felting to create the little yellow hat.
2️⃣ Something you already know how to do: I already knew how to sew a running stitch 🪡
3️⃣ Something new you’ve learned: I learned a lot of things to make this project! First, I learned how to make T-shirt yarn by cutting up T-shirts into mostly continuous strips and pulling them to create string. I also learned how to join the yarn strips. Then, I learned how to crochet an expanding rectangle for the base of the backpack (as shown in this video), which was a technique that was also covered in class as part of the Mobis potholder. I learned how to crochet a semicircle (part of which required learning how to crochet a magic circle), and how to crochet elephant ears. In addition, I learned some new stitches: half-double crochet stitch, double crochet stitch, and slip stitch. Finally, I learned how to make a basic gathered ruffle.
4️⃣ Specific inspiration #1: For this project, I really wanted to crochet something that would serve a functional purpose. And since I’ve always loved traveling, I decided to make a backpack of some kind.
5️⃣ Specific inspiration #2 (unrelated to first inspiration): I’m always inspired by Disney characters, and the idea of a character-themed backpack was really interesting to me. I’m a big fan of many of the Disney backpacks made by Loungefly, and I figured I could probably make something similar from crochet. One of the Disney characters that is near and dear to my heart is Dumbo––and since I had access to a lot of gray T-shirts, I decided to go with him as my second inspiration :)
📸 Photo Credit:
Top pictures: me
Bottom pictures: my mom 💕
