We designed a blanket and a pillow made for air travel. Our product is called the “Bare-hug”.Our blanket is made with pieces of pink and blue cotton t-shirts sewn together. We dyed the shirt pieces different colors with natural dyes we made in class. Once we finished dyeing our fabric, we pinned them together, preparing them to be sewn via sewing machine. Once our blanket was sewn, we began to work on the pillowcase. We used a soft jersey knit material to make it more comfortable to lie on. Since we also wanted our pillowcase to have a quilted design, we embroidered a quilt-like pattern onto the front. Our idea was to make our pillowcase reversible so there was also a more durable side. The fabric we used for the stronger side was the same pink cotton t-shirt we used for the blanket. After we assembled our pillowcase, we thought it would be convenient to have handles connected to the cotton side. That way, the blanket fits into the pillowcase, which then folds in half. The handles make it easier to carry around. Since we know (from experience) that it’s annoying to try and get the blanket to stay up on the airplane seats, we thought of having straps connected to the pillowcase. We made four straps out of the blue cotton t-shirts (two on the pillow, two on the blanket) that are attached by an buckles so you can adjust the length from the blanket to the pillow. To finish off our project we decorated the blanket with white footprints to represent traveling.
Our experience working on this project was interesting but nerve-racking. It was nerve-racking thinking of judges grading it against professional designers, but overall we had a lot of fun creating and designing. Even though it was a lot of fun, we faced some difficulties along the way. When we were making footprints to design our blanket, it was hard to keep the person balanced. It took a while but we cleaned up the footprints and the ended up looking nice. Overall we all learned a lot and had a great time doing it!
