Introduction:
Do you ever get a really weird random idea in your head, and you just decide that you have to make it happen?
Well, that was the case with me when I decided to make an actual-sized fabric banana.
Here it is in all it's glory!
The Process:
It started with me taking a real banana, and peeling it. I then laid out each of the pieces (peeled and the center) out onto a roll of paper and tracing out a 5 piece pattern using each piece.
Here are the pieces next to the partially completed banana. Making a pattern using an actual banana was quite an experience. 🙂
From there, I selected the fabric. I wanted it to be really playful and colorful, but still somewhat maintain some of its normal colors, so I chose a yellow lace that came off a thrifted child's dress and a beautiful blue brocade fabric that I had used for a costume about 5 years ago. I love the contrast of colors. The yellow lace was for the outside, and the blue was what I saw as a nice surprise when the banana was peeled back on the inside.
For the "meat" part of the banana, I cut off the lining of another thrifted dress in a tan color which served as a good base for the victorian era lace that I selected to cover it with. Since it the case fabric had some stretch, I simply doubled up the single pattern piece, sewed the pieces together and turned it inside out, then stuffed it with fabric scraps and molded it into the appropriate shape. This was easy to do since the fabric was stretchy and malleable.
The sewing portion was honestly the hardest part, particularly turning some of the smaller bits right-side-out.
This banana is 100% hand-sewn and stuffed with leftover fabric scraps that I had been keeping. I was surprised at how many of my fabric scraps were able to fit into this banana and it was a great way to keep fabric from going into a landfill. It ended up being a very dense banana!
The next day, I decided that the banana was just a bit too simple so I added a few Swarovski crystals to the lace, and sewed on beads at the banana stem and at the bottom where the banana is usually brown - shown below.
The Results & Other Thoughts:
Overall, I'm surprisingly really pleased with how this whim-of-an-idea came out in the end.
I personally have a bit of a difficult time branching out and starting new projects completely from scratch. It's easy to create a design and then do it over and over again, but it takes a certain amount of courage (at least for me) to get started on a brand new project - especially if you have no idea how to complete it and are starting it from an idea in your head.
As a person who constantly has new ideas in their heads, it's necessary to at least try to execute these ideas, even if they don't end up working out. I also find that this kind of practice is extremely useful as I feel like you always learn a new skill and learn what works and what doesn't work. Not everything turns out perfectly, but you usually learn something even just in the practice of trying.
In this case, I ended up with a really cute, silly whimsical banana textile sculpture that's proudly sitting unpeeled in my craft room.
I'm not sure whether or not I will make more to sell. I have been kind of itching to make another one, though, so if you're interested potentially owning a really weird banana sculpture you might see one pop up someday in my Etsy shop, so keep your eyes peeled! 😉