We didn’t have to go far … 2 blocks over, to the local school gym. What a nice surprise! Huge turnout and an amazing variety of “makers” projects.
Danica and I are big fans of the Textile Museum, so we were happy to see neighbours supporting it, front and centre, at one of the best locations. In addition to promoting museum visits, they were sewing, showing and selling very attractive embroidery and quilts. Some examples here.
One woman had followed an interesting career in textiles, creating historically accurate costumes for museums. From there, she moved to making puppets, also in historical outfits. She showed me her fox, (see picture) dressed in splendid medieval style. The detail was wonderful and the construction was completely authentic, right down to the codpiece.
I like people who make things with their hands. They seem happy, well adjusted and enthusiastic. That applies to all ages, too. School kids were impressive, presenting handmade inventions to jumpstart seedlings, and increase the bee population. Others pitted animated robots against each other in good-natured battles of destruction. They were building the robots on the spot. Raspberry Pi and Arduino projects demoed programmable electronic magic at affordable prices.
There were piles of Lego to be sculpted into anything imaginable, art supplies, paint and glitter. Woodburning drawings were in progress, sending the beautiful aroma of cedar smoke through the room. Books were being made out of a single sheet of paper. It was a DOING fair, not just a craft-selling event.
To top it all off, Danica was absolutely delighted when she won the raffle for a magnificent textile bag, exquisitely crafted by one of the participants, Kelly Mullan.
Andrew Duff, one of the event’s principal organizers was kind enough to bring the prize right to our door and snap a picture of the winner for the Facebook page.