I can't say I ever expected to see anyone make animal dissection cute, but knitting artist Emily Stoneking has done it. Her aKNITomy artwork faithfully recreates typical high school dissection projects as arguably cute knit panels.
This post may include affiliate links.
If you have a visceral or ethical problem with animal dissection, Stoneking's artwork also can potentially help you learn about what makes animals tick without making you hurl or cry. If your memories of those high school classes are less than fond, she also has alien knit dissections as well.
Stoneking sells these knitted animals dissections on her aKNITomy Etsy shop, where she has a load of other educational knit projects as well. Check out her shop and read on to see some of her answers to Bored Panda's questions about her work!
"I take a lot of artistic liberties," Emily Stoneking told Bored Panda. "I do spend a lot of time researching real anatomical structures, and my guts have evolved over time (they used to be pretty blobby and random). But now, they really look very human, which I have found people tend to gravitate to"
"The real deal is pretty messy and there are not a lot of distinct colors, and I want it to look more like an anatomical illustration (albeit an inaccurate one). I have begun moving toward more human based two-dimensional felted pieces, which I do aim to make very anatomically correct"
"When I do craft fairs, the most common response by far is that someone walks by my booth, sees what's hanging there, takes a couple more steps, and then does a double take and comes back laughing, which makes me happy"
"The question I get asked most often is: 'Are you a scientist?' And the answer is a resounding, no! I have a historian's brain, not a scientist's brain, I'm afraid"
"My interest in history tends toward medical history. I am very much inspired by (and trying to pay a small homage to) anatomical illustrations of the 18th and 19th centuries. They really are just lovely, and I hope to get into more human illustrations based on those"
"My husband and I were having one of those conversations where each person keeps coming up with funnier and weirder things based on whatever the last thing said was. One of us (we each claim credit) came up with the idea of a dissected frog, and as soon as it was said, I had a pretty strong idea about how I would design one, so I got to work!"
Emily Stoneking's knit animal anatomy pieces can be found on her aKNITomy Etsy shop!