Friday, October 11, 2019

Deer & Fawn


I realize that this is the second time I've used that title for a blog post - the first was last year at Halloween, when Kate and Bunny traipsed around the neighborhood collecting candy and dressed as a two-generational deer family. 

Today's post is not about costumes. It is instead a quick report on some recent Menagerie happenings. First up is this little fawn.

Indulge me in some backstory. Emily, who is a brand-new fresh(wo)man, now swims for her high school. All three girls have swum competitively - sometimes together but more recently not - and the more I watch them swim in their various groups, the more I understand how tough a sport swimming is, with its crazy-early training hours, stupid-cold pools (this is Minnesota, after all) and everyone exclaiming how they're perpetually ravenous. Emily's high school team is no different, but let me also say that I appreciate their dedication and admire their determination to have fun even as they're balancing homework and late nights and truly grueling workouts. It's a fantastic team, not only skills-wise, but also in just how they're a bunch of really nice kids who're kind and encouraging to each other.

One of these fun team activities is a secret sister game (like the equivalent of secret Santa at Christmastime) that runs the entire swim season and culminates in a big reveal after their final meet. Emily discovered that her beneficiary-sister likes deer, and so asked me to make her a Menagerie deer and fawn. 

Do fawns have antlers? 

I thought not, but figured that there had to be a transitional life stage during which they were simultaneously young enough to keep their spots and old enough to be sporting little antler nubs. 

Here is Dad Deer. Or Stag. Cutie, I thought -

although as all prototypes do, it still had some kinks to iron out. 

Like them ears.

As always while doing Menagerie research, I discover something new about the animal I'm sewing. In this case, I was astonished to discover how large deer ears actually are in proportion to their heads. Or maybe it's just that they look monstrous here next to their somewhat-modest-er antlers. No matter - it'll be trivial resizing the ears in subsequent versions.

Here they are, doing their Dad-and-son bonding thing.

The little fawn was bestowed upon Emily's secret sister a couple of weeks ago. Stag/Dad Deer follows next week!


P.S. If you are unfamiliar with Menagerie, you can read about it here, visit my Pinterest brag board here and buy the pattern here. Please note that the deer is a much-later adaptation of the Menagerie pattern and not included as one of the 19 original templates.