Pillow-making started Saturday morning at the zoo

Sunset, Feb, 1991

7 Domesticating elephants or other zoo beasts is easy with this pillow-making project. It begins Saturday morning with a sketching excursion to the zoo and ends Sunday afternoon with animals commemorated in paint on cloth. You can enjoy this as a family affair or include neighborhood friends. If you don't have a zoo nearby, try an animal shelter or tidepools brimming with marine life.

At the zoo. Newsprint pads (14 by 17 inches) and pencils are all roving artists will need as they explore the grounds in search of the perfect beast. Encourage children to fill their pads. If sketches are small, enlarge them on a photocopier. At home. For each pillow, buy a 20-inch-square pillow form and two 21-inch squares of cotton duck (preshrink); also carbon paper, pencils, black fabric markers, fabric paints, paintbrushes, newspaper, paper plates, and butcher paper. Masking tape and a 21-inch-square of corrugated cardboard are optional. First have children transfer outlines of sketches onto fabric with carbon paper, then draw over outlines with marker. Cover the floor and a worktable with newspaper, and gather the painting supplies. Next, pin cotton squares to a wall protected with butcher paper, or tape them to cardboard. After children paint their designs, let cloth dry 24 hours. Then, to set color, iron each side of fabric for 30 seconds on hottest setting (put a paper towel between the iron and painted side). To assemble the pillows, pin front and back cotton squares with right sides together, then machine-stitch a 1/2-inch seam, leaving an 8-inch opening. Turn right-side-out through opening, slip case over pillow, and hand-stitch closed.