I can't imaging any child playing with them. The felt would fall apart. On the one hand, keeping them as a kind of tribute wouldn't be a bad thing. On the other, what kind of a tribute is having a bunch of things stuffed in boxes where no one sees them?
They were in boxes at her house that I had never seen. Then they were in boxes at my Aunt's. Now they're in boxes at mine.
When I was in a quandary about other items for another relative, my sister suggested making a shadow box. In that case, I think I'll eventually do that. In this case, I'm not so sure.
I keep starting sentences with, "these are cute, and all . . .", but I'm not really sure that they are. The idea that they're stuffed animal toys is endearing. And the idea that they were made by our grandmother is nostalgic. But they're worn and aged.
And with Grandma L, you don't know that the wear came from kids playing with them. She made crafts to sell at more than one time in her life. These could have been samples that got worn by knocking around in the box. I think that if they had belonged to one of her children, they would have had a label. That was certainly the case with the baby clothes, baby shoes, rattles, and locks of hair.
Well, they've been memorialized here. If I do toss or sell them, I've kept the images. I may send the pictures to cousins and siblings to see if anyone else remembers or wants to keep them.
I suppose they don't quite qualify as antiques. My father was born in 1930, so that puts an upper limit on their age. I'm fairly sure they were made long after that. But you never know.
So here they are. I haven't found any evidence that she made the patterns. She both developed her own patterns and used purchased ones, for other craft things she did.
Most of the patterns she developed were flat, or mostly flat. She had a knack for drawing. Oh, the background runners came from the other side of the family. Those may or may not have been done by a different grandma. I'm going to have to decide about them, too.
