paper animals.

Over the weekend, I finally picked out the animal patterns I'm going to use for the bibs. The elephant and giraffe were pretty easy to find. I went through some children's coloring books that were laying around my parents house and saw these, which I liked. I will have to alter some things, however, so that the designs can feasibly be appliqued onto the bibs. For example, since I will hand sew all of the spots onto the giraffe, I will have to ignore the spots on this one and draw a couple big ones of my own. Also, I will probably make the elephant's tusk a little bigger than it is.

The monkey, however, was not so easy. I thought this photo would work, but when I showed it to my mom, she said that I need to consider how much stitching will be around it. The monkey's arms, for instance, are pretty skinny, so there would be a small amount of fabric on which I would need to make a lot of stitches. After looking at a bunch of coloring pages online, I decided to switch to a simple turtle, which I also found in the coloring book.

After I picked the animals, I scaled them to their proper size (about 5 inches tall), printed them and cut the pieces out. The elephant and giraffe will both have layers of fabric, so I needed a full body as the base. I will cut this out of one fabric, then layer the details on top of the main body. For the turtle, I only have two pieces, and they barely overlap, so it's much simpler.

I am starting to realize how much of an art applique is. I talked to my mom about it a lot this weekend, and there are so many details in the process that I would have completely skipped over had she not been there to listen to my schedule for making the bibs. I am realizing just how important and helpful it is to have someone guiding me through the process, teaching me tricks and reminding me of little steps along the way. I am very lucky to have a couple people in my life who have done applique before and who are skilled at it.

As mentioned in one of the class readings about craft classes and settlement schools, I am able to learn a craft through those who have been doing it for years, and through me, they are able to pass an old art form on to a new generation.