Bigger projects

A few years ago, I made a cloth book out of the poem "By a babe unborn" by GK Chesterton for my then unborn nephew. I gave it to him and his family when he was two weeks old and we visited. At some point I will blog and post pictures of what it ended up looking like.

He's now 2 1/2 and has a baby sister who is nearly half a year old. Although we were all very excited by this second arrival it was not so hyper exciting as baby number 1 and I think I was just distracted so instead of making a book before she's born (a bit late now) I am now planning a book when she's already here. I've mentioned this cloth book project before but I'm now a bit further on.

Before I share some drawings I think I should mention that this is a simpler project than either the Chesterton poem book or even the G[r]eek Alphabet. The imagery is not too complex but I'm determined to have some fun along the way with it.

The snail has a house/Die schneke hat ein haus

The snail's shell is its house but I don't just want a picture of a snail. The shell will be a flap that can be lifted to see inside a sort of single room dolls house. Although I drew the inside on a separate piece of paper, in fact it's the shell that will be separate and the inside of the shell will be part of the page.

You may be able to see in my sketch pad that the words have been altered slightly. This is because when I made my first plans in the sketch book I had to look up the exact words because I don't speak German and memorised this nursery rhyme some time back. I wanted to get it right. Unfortunately as with many nursery rhymes, there are slight variations on nursery rhymes, and when I was showing my drawings to my Mum she said those weren't the words my Omi used, so as I drew my full scale drawings I went through "correcting" the words to match the typed up words my Mum has for the nursery rhyme from my grandmother. Here the variation is small. The version I found online said "ihr haus" - her house, Omi said "ein haus" - a house

Ein fellchen hat die maus/A fur coat has the mouse

To play a bit more with the fur coat on the mouse I decided the mouse would be wearing a separate fur coat. And then I decided that there had to be a reason, so the mouse was to be going to the opera, to see "Die fledermaus" because reasons. The tiara is a late addition.

The sparrow has fine feathers/Der sperling hat feine federlein

This is another place where the words I found online varied from those written down by my mother. Internet said "die federn fein", Omi's words said "feine federlein". Anyway again I wanted to have some fun with the idea and thought that I would like to have the sparrow flying a biplane. I may try and make the propeller something that can spin.

Das schmetterling bunte flugelein/The butterfly has beautiful wings

Another set of word variations. Internet said "der falter seine flugelein", Omi's words "das schmetterling bunte flugelein". Not sure what the difference is. Anyway. I think I will make the wings flaps. Having varied the word placement they will probably go as they do in the bottom left, on the wings themselves in a mirror pattern. I haven't decided if there will be other decorative details.

Die eltern / Nun sage mir, was hast den du? / My dear child what have then you?

Although my grandmother's version didn't have this phrase /Die eltern and das kind for each of the verses, I like the idea that one verse is the adult's or older person's and the other is the child's. I decided that as there wasn't much to put on this page from the words I would put a little old lady sort of in the style of my Omi. My niece and nephew's grandmothers don't look anything like this. On one side, red hair long and straightened with a fringe, on the other side (my Mum) short curly blond hair, both are slim.

Das Kind / Ich habe kleider und auch shuh / I have clothes and shoes

I am debating having a way to allow the child to be dressable and for the shoes to be able to be put on but still attached maybe by a cord. Maybe if the velcro is pink? I don't know I'll have a think.

Father and mother, love and life / Vater und mutter, lust und leben

I had thought of putting "lust und leben " on a separate page, but I couldn't think of anything so it's ended up on this page. The main idea for the is design was a sort of family portrait (ish). The extra words also save me from drawing careful legs....

Das hat mir der liebe Gott gegeben / This has good God given me

This is basically a decorative design based on the cross. I decided that I wanted to use a form of the cross that I met when I went to World youth day in Madrid. It's a Dehonian cross from the Dehonian order who hosted my group while we were there.

Conveniently this brings me to 8 pages, although due to my style of page construction, I just need pages to go in pairs as the front and back are separate and sewn together.

This is probably all you will see of this project for a bit as I've got about 3 plushies (one of which is the car) to do first. Unless I get bored and mix them all up together... not into one project but not do them consecutively I mean.