Brussels:MIM

Our final day in Brussels was also our first day in Paris! We had a late afternoon train, so we decided to squeeze in one more attraction prior to leaving the city.

We'd spotted the Musical Instuments Museum (MIM) the day before during our hike to the Sablon area for chocolate, and we were curious to see if the inside of the building was as delightful as its exterior.

After we fueled up on omelettes and coffee, we trekked back towards the Mont Des Arts garden en route to the museum, which provided a gorgeous backdrop for photos of Mike's second version of McCall's 6044.

In the course of traveling together, Mike has been dragged to numerous yarn and fabric stores. Fortunately, he's a really good sport. Since he's along for the ride, he sometimes spots fabrics he likes for himself. At this point he has a designated cubby of the fabric stash.

The majority of the fabric stash dedicated to Mike is plaid and/or gingham. So, he had to learn some basic plaid matching principles before he could start cutting.

As I mentioned previously, he's a quick study, and he caught on quickly. He did a great job balancing the plaid on the fronts of his shirt and matching across seam lines. We decided to cut his cuffs and button bands on the bias as a design feature and to avoid having to match in those areas.

For those of you who seemed curious about getting your recipients involved in the process of making their own garments, I highly recommend it. It's much like cooking together or other activities where you're where you're participating towards an outcome that you're both rewarded by.

I love to sew, he gets a shirt. It's a win-win situation.

The museum was a fantastic way to fill our last morning in Brussels. There was a wide array of Instuments spanning centuries of development across continents. Most of the installations have interactive recordings of music featuring the instruments they contain. It's not a large museum, so you can easily explore all the exhibits in a short window of time and it wasn't at all crowded. It's definitely worth a visit, if you find yourself in Brussels.