Two Workshops!

Earlier this summer, I taught my second Menagerie workshop at the Minneapolis Textile Center. 

We had a full class and it was loads of fun. I'd done most of the conceptualizing while preparing for that inaugural workshop in November, along with ironing out kinks in the flow of activity, all of which are par for the course when conducting any lesson thing for the first time. There were twice as many participants this time around, but even though my actual prep work was doubled, it still felt more relaxed, with far fewer unknowns, so it was an overall wonderful experience. 

I also found myself with some time before the participants arrived to take pictures!

Here are the workstations.

The outcome of the workshop was to make a sampler animal, in the process practicing (or learning for the first time) various techniques for adding surface details with applique and quilting-stitching, and making and attaching different appendages within seams. 

It doesn't look like anything you'll have seen in nature thus far, but that's not to say an animal this multicolored might not exist in some far-flung corner of the world we've never had a chance yet to visit, right? My reasoning behind the colors (14!) was purely visibility and clarity - differently-colored parts showed up less ambiguously in photos, and were easier to visualize spatially in the various reference animals set around the room.

Everything that needed to be cut out, from templates to fabric pieces, was done so ahead of time, to allow the participants to focus on simply sewing during our time together. This translated to a lot of physical labor on my part in the weeks leading up to the workshop day, but it was worth it to be able to use our workshop hours truly efficiently.

There were lots of other notions spread out among the participants, including the long funnels for directing pellets down into small spaces. I designed this a long time ago for doll legs and called it The Contraption - the ones in the photo are sturdier, less improvisational versions of that prototype, and the participants each got to take one home. 

This was my table up front. I love the giant monitor that projected a view of my workspace! That said, even with this nifty bit of technology, I spent very little time actually up front teaching and instead wandered around the room doing personalized demos because everyone was mostly progressing at their own pace and needed help at very different times. There were aspects of this experience that reminded me of labwork when I was a school teacher - very much more a facilitative kind of instruction than lecture-and-keep-up.

Emily came to help me set up in the beginning, so if the room displays look put-together and intentional, it was to her credit. And it was also for this reason that I had that extra bit of time to take these photos before the class began.

We brought a large number of my prototypes from home - some are the familiar faces of the first Menagerie pattern, 

and others are newcomers who will be in the sequel.

We also brought the Spring Birds collection - the birds, the kits and the pattern-in-print.

Sharing the table were the classroom kits of the Rabbit, Ladybug, Grey Cat and Calico Cat. After completing their sampler animal in class, the participants got to pick one of these four kits to assemble on their own during the remaining time.

Speaking of, they were kind enough to allow me to take and share photos, so here are some shots of the class hard at work. 

In this shot, someone's sampler animal was really close to being finished!

When I've made the sampler animal myself at home and timed the process, it usually takes me about an hour and a half; perhaps two if I am also pausing to photodocument each step. However, most of the participants ended up using the entire workshop time to work on just their sampler animal, and took their choice kits home to work on. In class, there are so many factors that stretch that time out to the full four hours - or longer. Obviously, the learning process is a huge one - it takes time to read and digest instructions, for example. Temperamental sewing machines were another. Almost every participant had an issue with their machine handling fleece, although I'm happy to report that most were resolved by giving them a fleece needle. My old Pfaff has been able to sew through multiple layers of fleece with standard needles for years without issue, so it took me a while to figure out that an ineffectual needle might possibly be the problem for the frustration being experienced in class that day. Sometimes the simplest solution is the truly the best one! 

I thought I'd mention this here in case some of you have had the same issue with fleece - if so, try a fleece needle, or just any stretch or even knit ball-point needle. You wouldn't imagine that fleece is in the same category of fabric as a T-shirt, but it strangely is. It's only recently that I've begun to notice specific Fleece Needles in stores - they're essentially stretch needles, as I'd mentioned earlier, but labeled for fleece. Maybe enough people have had difficulty with this that Schmetz has finally decided to market these specially. 

I would love to run a third Menagerie workshop next summer if there is interest. If you're in the cities and missed the earlier two, look out for announcements here and on Instagram (I'm trying to post more regularly there!) In the meantime, let me tell you about my second workshop that's coming up in October. It's all about sleeves and armholes and how to put them together so they fit well and are comfortable.

You guys know I am obsessed with deconstructing drafting and trying to demystify it for regular folks who haven't done fashion courses or interned on Saville Row or wherever. But to teach a full drafting course just isn't feasible - it takes too long, and I honestly believe a person would need a lot more experience in real-world drafting for a very wide range of bodies to bring what is truly helpful to teach such a class. I have drafted for many years, yes, but mostly for people in my family, and sporadically, at that. 

Sleeves, however - one particular, niche aspect of drafting - I thought I might realistically attempt. I've deconstructed the theory to some degree in this now-somewhat-well-referenced post, and I've inferred from the response that the information has filled a gap in the content currently out there. I'd like to take that theory a step further in this workshop with a hands-on portion in which we'd measure a partner and draft a sleeve from those measurements. The plan is not to use the usual drafting textbook rubrics but to freehand the drafts, the way I've always done them, using sleeve theory principles together with customized preferences. It will be rule-breaking and dangerous! Haha! No, not really. My goal is liberation from the rigid Hows by providing some Whys, and if I can reduce someone's frustration in the drafting experience, I will have been successful.

Anyway, if you're in the cities and are interested in drafting more comfortable sleeves, come join us! Half of the time will be a lecture-of sorts, but I will bring lots of props for show-and-tell, like multiples of this crazy vest that I'm fine-tuning. 

Because there was no one here to accurately measure me, I had to use as my starting point my most recent sloper, which was still 13 years old and had to be heavily modified to fit current-me. The plan is to graft on differently-drafted sleeves to demo various effects: high sleeve cap, low sleeve cap, large armholes, small armholes, etc. I foresee myself repeatedly zipping and unzipping myself in and out these throughout the afternoon. It will probably be chaos. The participants will probably think I'm insane. So be it. It won't be the first time someone thought that. At the end of our time together, I hope to make them feel comfortable with their own bodies, so they don't so much focus on all the ways they depart from the commercial standard as leave feeling that there's a sleeve cap for each gloriously unique arm that's in my classroom that day. 

Register here. 

Some quick details:

Date: Thursday, October 16th 2025

Time: 2- 4 pm

Place: Minneapolis Textile Center

I hope to see you there!

Menagerie Workshop and Shop Update!

Hello everyone, and - for those who celebrate it in North America at this time of the year - an early happy Thanksgiving!

I had so much fun at last week's Menagerie workshop. I learned so much from the process of prepping and teaching the class, as well as from my four joyful, competent participants. All skilled seamstresses, they were focused, patient, asked fabulous questions and worked with great determination for four hours to make stuffed toys together. We started out in the "do this next" step-by-step way of traditional classroom sequences and then very quickly, each participants found their own pace and rhythm, so that what was left for me was to wander around the room and enjoy watching them instinctively assemble their plushie from its disparate parts (and occasionally poke my nose in their business to see if they needed any help).

Oh, how I've missed being in a classroom! I loved the intimate size of this class, which allowed us to chat randomly between sewing an arm, or a tail, or to demo a particular technique one-on-one. So, so, fun. There was a lot of prep to do beforehand, not only of the materials we'd be working on, but even more so to anticipate the best way to teach someone in a brand new setting, with equipment and technology I'd not been accustomed to using. I mean, for the past couple of decades, my mode of instruction with you guys has been tutorials and photodocumentation. And before that, when I was a high school teacher, there were still chalkboards and white boards and OHPs and transparencies (remember those? Sooooo funny). 

Of all the things I've learned as a teacher, the most vital is this: different learning speeds. These days, we talk about different learning styles: visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and I can't remember the others. But more fundamental is the challenge of presenting the same instructional material to a group of learners who, because each is an individual, will process that material at varying rates. And as instinct leads us to slow down for the student with the most furrowed brow, this concept was drilled into us in teaching college; some professor would always be asking, at some point or other, regardless of whether it was a Science or English or Phy Ed teacher's course, "And how will you ensure that the quick learners will not get bored?" 

I almost went the way of the powerpoint presentation, let me confess. I thought I'd run a slideshow of enormous annotated photos detailing each step to guide most of the class even as I backtracked to an earlier stage to review a particularly fiddly technique with others. 

Thank the stars I didn't. Instead: handouts. Which looked just like one of my blog tutorials, with color photos and do-this-do-that in accompanying text. Did it involve more prep work? Sure, but it was worth it. Some participants followed the instructions, others deviated as they felt creative, and anyone could be on whatever page fit their speed most comfortably. 

My one regret is not thinking to take photos. Grrr! I was so focused on being present during those four-plus hours, that I didn't imagine I might want to share that experience with you guys in this post after. I did take one quick shot - just one, and only because I thought the husband and kids might like to see what it all was like - and the participants have kindly let me share it here:

I wish I'd taken photos of the setup of the room, the various animal displays of both Season 1 and Season 2 Menagerie critters, and the sewing tables stocked with notions and materials at the start of the class. When I got home, I recreated the shot I would've taken:

Edited 2025: One of the workshop participants sent me her photos, which I'm posting here. Thank you, Rachel SR!

Photo credit: Rachael SR

Photo credit: Rachael SR

Photo credit: Rachael SR

If I ran this workshop again in the future, I'll be sure to do a better job photodocumenting it! I also need to record all the things I'd tweak and those that worked wonderfully, because the learning process for me was at least as exciting as being able to teach in person again. One of the things that really surprised me was how much I liked cutting out pieces of fabric for the participant kits. It felt like mass-producing (which you all know I adore) but without the actual making, and I had so much fun doing it that I made way more kits than I knew we'd need. It certainly gave the participants plenty of choices on the day of, but it was mostly because I wanted to keep going with the cutting and assembling. Well, now I have kits to put in my Etsy shop for you to buy if, unlike me, you actually disprefer cutting stuff out and just want to get right to the sewing!

There are three different Menagerie kits, and each contains almost all the materials and notions you'll need to make that animal, plus the templates so you can make more of that same animal after if you want. You'd only need to supply fiberfill stuffing and sewing thread. I'll include some instructions (you'll get a black-and-white printout with your order, and I'll email you the color PDF version). 

Here, I anticipate a question: Does the kit come with the sewing pattern?

To which I will say that the answer is a bit roundabout, so bear with me as I try to explain.

These kits are intended to be used with your Menagerie sewing pattern, so if you already own that, you'll find that the print instructions, particularly for the Rabbit and Ladybug, are very similar. If you don't, the print instructions accompanying each kit may be adequate if you already have some experience sewing stuffed animals. There might be some Menagerie terminology (like "rolled ear") that's new to you and which are explained in the Menagerie sewing pattern, but instinctive people will probably be able to work around it. 

You can buy the Menagerie Sewing Pattern here.

In order of challenge level, I'd say the Rabbit is the quickest sew in that it is a classic Menagerie animal with very simple surface details. The instructions are also pretty basic, with a couple of photos or diagrams.

The Ladybug also comes together quickly but because it deviates a little more from the classic four-appendage Menagerie animal, the accompanying instructions contain more detailed step-by-steps and photos.

The Grey Cat is a new variation on the original sleepy-eyed Season 1 cat, 

so the instructions are correspondingly much more detailed. I'd go as far as to say you wouldn't even need the Menagerie sewing pattern with this Cat kit - the instructions are more than adequate. 

And speaking of patterns, I'm thrilled to announce that you can now buy my Menagerie pattern book. In print! 

Limited numbers of physical copies are now in the shop. The pattern book is the same full-color thing as the popular PDF digital pattern, except in hardcopy, 

and spiral bound for your reading (and reference) pleasure. 

For those who want to sew something a little smaller, 

I'm relisting my Spring Bird kits, 

with the option to bundle them with the sewing pattern if you don't already own it. You can select the option in a drop-down menu and I will email you the PDF pattern file after your purchase is completed. 

Finally, and I'm super excited about this - for the first time ever, there are also some actual Menagerie critters in the shop! I've been hoarding all my prototypes since day 1, only some of whom have found space in my sewing room to live

but as I'm working through the documentation of Season 2, I've needed to make duplicates for the photos. The plan was to release all the duplicates when Menagerie 2 is finished, but I. Am. Running. Out. Of. Space. Plus, I want nothing more than for these animals to find better homes and other children (and adults) who will love them now. So this is the first wave; just seven, each uniquely handmade and one of its kind.

Axolotl

Beaver

Rabbit

Dilute Calico Cat

Grey Tabby Cat

Sperm Whale

Narwhal

Lots more photos with each listing in the shop.   I hope you stop by and find fun and creative gifts for yourself and someone you love!