The I AM project is both fascinating and challenging to me. In this project, I sketched various designs, chose one between them, came up with original patterns, made muslin prototype, stuffed it with “secret ingredients” and finally made a plush toy that represent or encourage myself. I made a wisdom tooth plush toy because I am going to extract my wisdom teeth soon and I wanted to make one for the tooth fairy. I named it “I AM EARLY” because I really wanted to improve my time management. I hope this toy can encourage myself to always be early for everything. Fashion is a fast-paced industry, I need to practice myself to be early in order to create innovative and original designs before they were thought of and before the trend starts.

I really enjoyed the sketching process. When I first received the prompt of this project, I was very excited and quickly sketched multiple versions. It was a bit overwhelming to choose one between them at first, but I soon made the decision of making the wisdom tooth based on both Kirk’s suggestion and my personal preference. The most challenging part for me in this project was probably making the pattern. I was initially struggled to make the patterns out of nothing. I didn’t know how to start. Then I made a cardboard skeleton to help me think about the pattern in a 3D way. After several attempts, I made the first set of patterns and test them on muslin. However, the shape didn’t turn out to be the pointy shape that I wanted. I then redesigned the pattern by testing on pattern paper and small pieces on muslin and finally made the shape I want in the final plush toy. I also messed up a little bit when sewing the prototype: I didn’t sew the upper piece on the right side so the seam allowance was exposed. Luckily I found this mistake early so I finally fixed it with the chosen fabric. I chose white because I want the audience to recognize it as a tooth easily, but I add some little pieces of black and red to create some lovely little features (eyes and mouth). At last, I sew the final piece mainly with sewing machine and partially by hand. Because I found some places on the fabric are too difficult to sew on a small scale.

To conclude, I really learnt a lot and enjoyed a lot by doing this project. I was sort of afraid of the sewing machine before doing this project, but now I am much more comfortable using it. I also love the process of creating an art project based on my personal taste, and learnt the importance of prototyping and redesigning. The secret ingredients including the heart, brain and the list of inspiring words were also an important part of this project. Thinking about them always made me smile.