Moby Dick, Chapter 93

I had a creative assignment for my Herman Melville class. We had to creatively interpret a scene or theme from Moby Dick. I didn’t have enough time to knit something, but that wasn’t going to stop me from doing something crafty! Inspired by Checkout Girl, I made these companion applique pieces

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I chose the scene where Pip gets knocked out of a whaling boat and left behind while the others pursue the whales. There are some academic explanations for why I picked this scene and laid it out on two hoops, but I’ll spare you because I need to write it in essay form later tonight.

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Here’s Pip. I did this hoop first so I had a few struggles. Luckily I was working with fairly thick 100% wool felt so I could use some discrete needle felting to touch up on small details like Pip’s thumbs.

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I’m really happy with the whaling boat. I drew it out on Illustrator and then printed it to use as a pattern to cut my felt. I embroidered the details. It’s not too shabby for my first real attempts at applique and embroidery


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16 responses to “Moby Dick, Chapter 93”

  1. What a neat idea! My roommate is also reading Moby Dick for a class.. odd coincidence

  2. That is a really cool project! Wool felt is a little hard to come by. Where did you find it?

    1. It was at my local craft store, Artco, with the needle felting materials. I actually wanted to go cheap and get synthetic felt but I couldn’t figure out where they were hiding it!

  3. That is awesome!! And kudos to the teacher for assigning something creative.

  4. That’s so cool!

  5. you did a great job! Good luck with your essay 🙂

  6. That is awesome! We didn’t get to do anything cool like that in my Moby Dick class but I did do a presentation on minority pirates. I wanted to do a whole thing about scrimshaw but the professor turned that idea down.

  7. Awe, I love it! What an awesome idea & execution. 🙂

  8. Misiula

    I love this, Andi! This is such a fabulous response to the novel! You’ve made me want to design a craft assignment for the class I’m teaching in the fall!

    1. This is the second time I’ve had a creative project for a Lit class. My initial reaction is always, “Whyyyy???” but once I actually get started I realize that it’s a great exercise in close reading and analysis of structure if you do it right. I love seeing what everyone else does. One guy in my class made a clear whale sculpture because of the whale in the novel is actually empty of meaning and the readers and the characters project meaning onto it. Another guy wrote a song that went with the themes of the novel. It’s pretty fun.

      1. Misiula

        Those are all very impressive projects. Wow!

  9. These are incredible!

  10. What a fun project! This is right up your alley.

  11. Very cool! You did an amazing job with the assignment, and I can’t believe it’s your first time with applique!

  12. Hee, that’s awesome!

  13. Ahhhh!! This is so cool! I wrote about Moby Dick for my graduate school applications and ever since I seem to be picking up whale novelty buttons and fabric…

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