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:

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!

More patterns in print

To clarify: no, I have not struck a business deal with a commercial printer to get my patterns sent to the far corners of the world. I mean that I am incrementally making hardcopies of my thus-far-only digital patterns. I have no idea why I didn't think to do this years ago. Maybe it never crossed my mind that something in softcopy might be nice to have in some concrete, tangible form.  Or maybe it did, but after running some calculations and balking at how much it would cost to actually print full-color books, I decided to deprioritize it till later. 

Well, later finally arrived. Last year, I sifted through countless printing companies insisting on minimums of 1000 copies and found one willing to make single prints. Hurrah! I uploaded a few files as a test-run of sorts, and was very pleased with how they turned out. You can read about that here.

The impetus for finally getting all this printing done was Menagerie. So, as I've been saying for who knows how long, I'm in the (very slow but sure) process of writing Menagerie 2. In contrast to the original Menagerie which I wrote in a few months in 2015, the sequel is taking years. Partly because my life is - surprisingly - so much busier with teenagers than I ever was with preschoolers and elementary kids, but also because the animals of Menagerie 2 are exponentially more complex and ambitious than the ones in the first installment. 

Giraffe, for Menagerie 2

Whale, for Menagerie 2

Unicorn, for Menagerie 2

As I documented each new animal and its instructions, I referred constantly to the original Menagerie pattern in order to keep the terminology consistent. It got to the point where I was opening the digital file so frequently that I realized how ridiculous it was to be speed-scrolling between pages 1 and 87 or toggling between tabs. What I needed was a printed book on the desk beside me as I worked on the computer, whose pages I could flip, preferably spiral bound so it would lay flat or folded behind itself. That was the motivation for the hardcopy version. And then, since I had committed to printing one pattern, why not throw in a few more?

This year, I sent a few more patterns to the printers. I suppose I could've printed all of them in one go, but it would've been a splurge, so I figured I'd pace myself and do just a few each year. The goal is by the time Menagerie 2 is finished, all the others will have been turned into hardcopy, too. This is the haul so far: nine, which is not quite halfway through the whole collection, but in time, we'll get there.

And now, I'm packing kits for the upcoming workshop. It's a ton of work but unexpectedly fun cutting out all these multicolored shapes. The floor of our basement living room was a riot of color and fleece scraps all last week. 

And besides, assembling kits is always hugely entertaining. All those little pieces and components that get to be organized in self-contained sets!

I get excited anticipating the participants' relief that they don't have to cut stuff out themselves and can instead jump right into the sewing and constructing.

Hope you guys are doing well. November can be gloomy here in Minnesota - it has none of the crisp brightness of October nor the magic of December and its sometimes pretty and well-timed snowfalls. Sandwiched between two far superior months, November can kinda be a downer, so I hope you're able to get some sunshine and fresh air, maybe even a fun creative project or two to spike those endorphins! Take good care of yourselves, friends!

I'm Teaching A Soft Toy Making Class!

Hey, everyone!

A quick post tonight to tell you about a class I'm teaching next month at the Textile Center in Minneapolis!  

It's a 4 hour workshop in which we'll be making soft toys together - specifically, Menagerie animals, but more generally, we'll be covering stuffed animal design and structure, techniques for making various appendages and how to use seams to attach those appendages. It's part Stuffed Toys 101, part sewalong, and part This Is How We Cope With Impending Minnesota Winters.

The workshop is divided into two sections. The first is literally that sewalong I mentioned. We'll be making a sampler project, a multicolored patchwork creature that doesn't look like any animal I recognize in nature, but all those different colors are meant to help with spatial visualization and clarity in the making process.   

In the second half, you'll get to pick one of three animals - a cat,

 a ladybug 

or a rabbit -

to make on your own. Unlike the sampler project, these will look like actual animals, with familiar color schemes and anatomical features. Here's an older photo of our prototype rabbit in Kate's arms, to give you an idea of its size.

You'll bring your sewing machine and basic sewing supplies, and I'll provide the fabric, stuffing, poly beads, safety eyes, and other things needed. Want to know the best part? I'm cutting out all those pieces for you ahead of time, so it's like getting a ready-to-sew kit. I figured that it's a better use of our time together to be actually sewing, rather than fiddling with pattern pieces or prepping and laying out on fabric. You'll go home with (time permitting) two completed projects and a digital copy of the Menagerie pattern so you can make more animals at your leisure. 

I'm hoping to bring some print copies of Menagerie as well, so if you prefer a physical book to flip through, you can pick one up after the class. Fingers crossed that I'll get around to contacting the printer in time - this has been a really busy fall with the two younger girls in swim team and all three (including the one in college) in their various musical ensembles. My evenings are full with swim meets and concerts and football games but it's a good full. I'm trying to attend as many as I can, because the year passes so quickly, senior year especially.

So come join us if you're in the cities and want to make some stuffed toys for the holidays, or even if you just want to meet and sew with me! There's lots of info in the link below: a class description, materials list, cost and more, but here's a summary:

Place: Textile Center, Minneapolis, MN

Date: Friday 22 November 2024

Time: 12 pm - 4 pm

Cost: $85 + $40 materials fee (which includes the cost of the Menagerie PDF pattern)

More information can be found here.

Slightly related, to prepare for this workshop, I made a bunch of new Menagerie cats. Two of them are calicos, in honor of Maisy, our own sweet and sassy calico. I will share photos soon!

Star Wars - Millennium Falcon

I am so excited to show you our Millennium Falcon! 

It's a playhouse of sorts for the Star Wars peg people from this earlier post.

If I ever had a craft bucket list, this would've been on it.

Before we go any further, I want to tell you about Lindsey. If you've been around craft blogs for a while, you might've been familiar with Lindsey's blog Filth Wizardry. She is an absolute genius -  her ideas and projects were always way, way, outside the box, mind-blowingly original and so utterly, inspiringly fearless. One of my favoritest of those projects was this Millennium Falcon she and her husband Paul built in 2010 from thrifted items. I remember seeing it and wishing my kids had been into Star Wars (or anything Sci Fi, really) so I had a reason to attempt to make something even close. But it was not to be - as I'd mentioned in the last post, we stayed in a princess phase for a very, very long time, which then morphed seamlessly into a Harry Potter phase, then slime and Minecraft. And by the time Star Wars finally became a thing much later, it felt like the ship had sailed, both literally and figuratively.

Then, more than a decade later, my nephew was born, and the stars aligned so that this year, he became besotted with Star Wars. And I saw this for the second chance it was to make this crazy, wonderful dream project. I pulled up Lindsey's blog and read all her notes, in addition to Paul's, and then very quickly realized that the found objects which were easily accessible 14 years ago were totally not so today. Still, I loved their concept and design for the Falcon, and decided it was worth doing the research needed to locate present-day alternatives to recreate it, if it were even possible.

Seven weeks later, here is my version of their Millennium Falcon - it looks a little different but I kept as many of their original features as I could. 

I'll give you a quick tour. It's essentially a plastic microwave lid sitting on a circular wooden serving tray, with holes cut into the plastic lid for a cockpit

and a fold-up ramp.

Inside the ship, there is a removable partition

 that loosely divides the base into four rooms

The cockpit is an air freshener container whose top can be removed so the regular sized peg people can get inside. Here's Han Solo in it. Unfortunately Chewy, being taller, doesn't fit. 

Although there wasn't an occasion in the movies for all the characters to be together on board, here they are now, all gathered for a photoshoot.

Here are some shots of Kate (now 15!) playing with it. 

Watching her, I felt like something had come full-circle - I think it was the (very) delayed gratification of finally having built this for my kids to play with, even if it was for just a few minutes. There was a tiny bit of Please Can We Keep It imploring but everyone knew that it had always been meant for another little child to own, and we were ultimately excited to think of him opening the gift and enjoying it.

So, let's deconstruct now. I didn't want all my research to go to waste, so I thought I'd do a tutorial so I could share it with you. Here's a funny thing: for the longest time, I didn't even want to commit to painting the peg dolls until I was fairly confident I would be able to build the Falcon, and I couldn't be sure of that until I'd found all the parts I needed. This took a couple of weeks - surfing the internet, going to random brick and mortar stores in search of very precisely-sized items. As an example, the most uncertain of these was the cockpit. 14 years ago, Lindsey and Paul had used a dollar store air freshener, but when I went to our dollar store (and countless supermarkets, Target, Walmart, etc.), all I found were glass plug-ins or rotund plastic things that were the absolute wrong shape. I finally found this at a local hardware store, which led to choosing the correct-size PVC pipe to fit it, and at that point, I knew I could finally begin working on the peg doll portion of this project. So conflated and silly, right?

This random jumble of parts was the first draft of sorts - I ended up tweaking the design quite a bit, and replacing what you see in the photo below with more suitable alternatives in later photos.

As with the peg dolls, I thought I would include links to the various components of the spaceship to save you the research time, should you want to do this yourselves someday. Even this second picture I took below doesn't show all the pieces I eventually used. The black 45-degree elbow joint, for instance, was not the right angle after all, and I ended up replacing it in the final design with a white 60-degree one. Still, it's a good layout of roughly what you'll need.

A: This 13" serving board was from Target here and served as the base of the spaceship.

B: This 11.6" microwave cover was from Amazon here, and was the top of the spaceship. 

All the wood extensions were cut from scraps in my garage, so they can be substituted with other kinds/ thicknesses of wood pieces. 

C: These two front mandible-looking things were cut from 1 x 4 lumber, and are roughly 3/4" thick.

D: The ramp was cut from a long strip of 1/4" x 1-1/2" plywood. I don't remember the exact length of the ramp, but it was about 3", maybe 4".

E: This strip of wood is a placeholder for this photo. I eventually cut two pieces from that same 1/4" x 1-1/2" plywood that the ramp was from. They became the "runners" under the spaceship, which I will say more about later. They served two functions: one, as an anchor for attaching the front mandibles, and two, for the completed spaceship to slide along a table surface later.

The next three items assemble into the cockpit. 

F: This eventually was replaced by this 60-degree 1-1/2" elbow joint.

G: This was a section of 1-1/2" PVC pipe (1-1/2" is the interior diameter; the outer is more like 1-3/4"), cut at an oblique angle to facilitate hardware installation. We had scrap pipe in our garage but you could easily buy a short (2 ft) length from hardware stores like this.

Save the rest of the PVC pipe because you will need scraps of it for two other applications later (not shown). 

H: This is the Glade air freshener.

J: The next two items assemble into the room dividers. I loved this idea from Lindsey's original design, and so replicated it here. The clear cylindrical bit is from a CD spindle holder, just as hers was. I cut off the base and saved just the cylindrical walls. You can buy empty spindle cases on Amazon, for instance, but mine was a donation from a neighbor.

K: The three "fins" became the walls of the room divider thing. I measured and shaped these fins according to the height and shape of the microwave lid. These were cut from scrap plywood which, if I remember right, was 3/8" thick. I dislike putting screws into the edges of plywood, because they tend to split the wood layers, so if you have regular lumber of appropriate thickness, use that instead.

L: These are little wooden discs I had in my wooden blanks stash. Some of these were 1-1/4" and some were 1-1/8". They are surface embellishments for the top of the spaceship. I also used a 2" disc (not shown because it was a later idea) for the cannon mount at the top of the ship.

M: This is a 1" hinge - I only used one of the two in the package.

Now for the how-to: first, the room divider/inner chamber thing. The three "fins" were attached to the cylindrical inner chamber with screws, 

then the entire thing was painted and varnished. 

Next, I built the main floor of the spaceship. To begin, the ramp was attached via the hinge. I pre-painted the ramp and part of the rim of the circular board around the attachment site, just so that as I layered more parts on later, I wouldn't have to shove tiny paintbrushes into nooks and crannies. Attaching the ramp first allowed me to draft the two mandibles on either side so their curvatures matched the appropriate sections on the circular board.

There are three mandibles in this next picture because one of them was a practice piece for getting used to the jigsaw. I am no woodworking expert, but I learned quickly that pre-taping the lines with masking tape really helped with getting clean, crisp cuts, especially with plywood. 

Then the mandibles were wood-glued to the two strips of plywood, 

which we will hereafter call "runners". The runners were trimmed at the top end to match the pointy tips of the mandibles - you'll see this in the next photo.

The runners were subsequently wood-glued to the curved edge and underside of the circular board. Then screws were driven in along the length of the runners. I used a countersink drill bit to drive the screw heads in flush with the surface of the wood so they wouldn't protrude and scratch whatever surface they were resting on. The resulting arrangement was very sturdy. You can also see that this sequence of assembly ensured that there was enough space on either side of the ramp for it to fold up and down easily. 

This is the top view. Because that circular rim of the base was beveled, the mandibles did not lie flush against the edge of the board, so I filled the gaps with wood filler, which looks gross and messy in the photo, but got painted over eventually.

The cockpit was next. The air freshener was disassembled and cleaned out.

The smallest part at the top had no function in this project, so was discarded. The bottom had most of its stem sawed off (this bit was discarded, too). The remaining thing I'm holding would become the front "glass" face of the cockpit.

On the main body of the air freshener, the top opening was cut off to remove the pokey-out bits. 

The PVC elbow joint would need to fit into this opening, and those bits would've prevented that.

This was roughly how these two parts would've fit together, even though I didn't end up using this black 45-degree elbow. You'll see a white 60-degree substitute in later photos.

This is a bird's eye view of the cockpit assembly. Remember the leftover PVC pipe I suggested earlier that you save? You'll need a short piece (1" is sufficient) for an inner collar to connect the air freshener to the elbow. Also visible are my pencil lines showing the position of the inner chamber/room divider on the circular board. This is to ensure I left enough room for it when attaching the cockpit system.

Finalizing the position for the hardware required roughly assembling the entire cockpit configuration and moving it around. I settled eventually on just two bolts, one through the short PVC pipe, and the other through the elbow.

Here's the side view to show you an accommodation I had to make for this particular combination of parts. The rim of the wooden board raised the entire cockpit configuration by about 1/4" off the main board surface, so I used a couple of 1/8" thick wooden discs (again, they were on hand and therefore convenient) to keep everything level. 

 

Once the positions of the bolt holes were finalized, the holes were drilled, and then the painting could happen. The entire wooden section of the spaceship was painted separately from the PVC parts. There is a flat circular disc in the photo below which I'll mention later.

Before the cockpit was added to the board (bolt holes visible in the photo), felt was glued to the runners. It was just easier to add the felt at this stage while the board could still lie flat upside down.

Then the bolts and nuts were put in to attach these two components to the wooden base.

Side shot: the two blue arrows show where the bolts went.

In the picture below, you can see the unpainted collar used to connect the air freshener to the elbow joint. It was hot-glued in place.

This is the completed cockpit. 

and the base of the spaceship at this point. 

Here is the room divider in place. It's a pretty snug fit alongside the cockpit system but there was actually a fair bit of wiggle room even when the lid was on.

On the underside of the wooden board: the felt-topped runners.

The base of the spaceship - completed.

The lid (microwave cover) portion of the spaceship was a more straightforward process to work on. First, holes were cut into the front and side to accommodate the ramp and the cockpit. Full disclosure: the plastic of the microwave cover, particularly the rim, was thick and challenging to cut through with just the exacto knife I was using. It probably would've been very easy with a dremel, but I didn't have one. At the time I wasn't aware of this, but I've since read (on the internet) that people use a hairdryer to soften plastic before cutting into it. Now, given that this is a microwave lid, I don't know if the plastic is especially heat-resistant, so this tip may not work. If anyone tries this, let us know in the comments how it went!

The next step was to sand the smooth surface of the plastic, to give the primer, glue and paint something to grab onto. See that little grey circular doodad? It was the vent of the microwave lid, and you can twist to rotate it. I had plans to attach a satellite dish to it because the Millennium Falcon had one, but eventually decided it might just be one more thing to break off during play, and so left it out.

Speaking of embellishments, there were any number I could've add to the lid to make it more closely resemble the Millennium Falcon, but I chose just a few so that the finished look was symbolic rather than a literal replica. The first was the laser cannon on the top of the ship. It was made with toothpicks glued to a small bit of plastic, and the whole thing glued to a pre-painted 2" wooden disc. This disc, like all the other surface embellishments, was hot-glued to the microwave lid. However,I assumed that because it was centrally-placed, this disc might end up being a convenient knob of sorts to lift the cover on and off during play. With that new function in mind, I added a bolt and nut to make it extra secure.

Six smaller wooden discs were painted and glued on for the Falcon's iconic heat exhaust vents. 

The side airlock was a wooden disc inside a 1/4"- thick ring of leftover 1-1/2" PVC pipe. The actual ship has two airlocks, one on each side,

but I only used one because there was a hole on the other side for the cockpit.

The backlight exhaust thingy was just a section of the rim painted metallic blue.

These are the three parts of the spaceship, with some of the peg people for size reference.

And a couple more gratuitous brag shots.

I had so much fun building this. There are some projects that you want to get done quickly before they turn into those cursed WIPS languishing forever under your sewing table, and so many of those still live in my house. But this was different - I knew from the beginning that this would be long-haul, but the momentum never flagged, and even the problem-solving-research phase felt like a treasure hunt. I can't remember the last time I got to be so obsessively immersed in a craft project - I was both relieved and sorry when it was finally finished!