Textiles: Making Stuffed Toys
During our Victorian topic, we explored the evolution of childhood. We made our own stuffed toys to compare to Victorian toys. We followed the process of investigating existing products (using ICT), practicing our focused skills, designing our own, making and evaluating.
The toys children played with in Victorian times often depended on how wealthy their family was. Children from rich families played with rocking horses, train sets, doll’s houses and toy soldiers, whereas children from poor families tended to play with home-made toys such as peg dolls, spinning tops and skipping ropes.
Investigating
Using the computers, we researched into existing toys. We evaluated the products we found. We mind-mapped on Publisher, things we liked and disliked about the product. This really helped us decide what parts we wanted to incorporate into our designs.
Our key skills for this textile project were: blanket stitching, threading a needle independently, creating a 3D stuffed toy from a 2D design, and measuring and marking material independently. We had lots of time to practice these skills before we started to make our product
.Design
From investigating existing products, we were able to make a mock-up design.
Make
We followed our design brief very closely and started to make our stuffed toys.
Evaluation
After we finished our making process, we evaluated our final product. We answered a range of questions - Has our product met our design brief and purpose? What we were particularly proud about our product? How would we improve it next time?
