Saturday, May 14, 2016

Making A Menagerie

photo credit: Kum Kit Chan (uncle!)

My aunt is working through Menagerie.

It's so much fun to watch these animals birthed by her hands. This woman's workmanship is unsurpassed. She's a quilter and dressmaker and, like me, she sews without commercial patterns. Which makes it even more interesting that she's using my Menagerie pattern to sew the animals of Menagerie.

What's also interesting is that she's making all the animals from felt, not fleece. I designed Menagerie for fleece, and have often wondered what it might be like in other fabrics. Now we know.

Other Relatives-Making-Stuff news: 
Emily is making a cardboard castle. It has a working portcullis and electric fireplace and secret passageway and soldiers' barracks and everything. And has taken photos. She has not let me help, and keeps shooing me away when I try. I feel somewhat slighted. Will show photos later - it's an espionage-y school project in which two teams pit war strategies against each other and they want to keep it secret (like in a real war). 

School has certainly changed since I was a kid. I seem to remember my schooldays being filled with transitive verbs and Chinese business letters and acute opposite angles, not warfare.

6 comments:

  1. Hurray for your aunt! I bet she's having a lot of fun with them!

    Can't wait to see Emily's project!

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  2. Lovely and colorful! Your aunt is talented.

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  3. Those animals are darling!

    Emily's school project sounds really fun. Can't wait to see photos!

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  4. I had always assumed the Menagerie would work better in felt, but I have fleece exhaustion here in the northern US.

    I spent much of my youth building elaborate compounds for my troll dolls (half castles, half homage to the Borrowers books), but I did not have an electric fireplace and therefore am in thrall to whatever Emily is building.

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  5. Re: Castle -
    And shall be shared soon, friends! Emily handed her project in this morning for grading, and still claimed there could've been more stuff added to it. I'll see if I can have her be guest-curator for that post!

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  6. LOVE the menagerie animals in felt. I'm still longing for an excuse to buy the pattern and make all the animals (currently decluttering our tiny apartment and can't in good conscience add more stuffies, much as we love them). Also - that castle sounds epic! If she's willing to share pictures I'd adore seeing it. I have fond memories of various cardboard abodes and structures for imaginary creatures, though Emily's sounds far more sophisticated in design and execution than any of mine.

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