A Summer Thought

So it's the end of July and August is almost here, but as usual my mind is on September. It's the start of a new school year which means the vacation is over, but it also means the new school year and all the things that go along with that (meeting new students, starting new clubs, seeing old students, decorating my classroom and starting fun assignments).

At the moment I am super excited to be teaching sewing to all the grade seven's and eights at my school this year. We will be creating plush monsters. I have yet to figure out all the details, but I still have a month to do that, AND that's where this blog comes in. I'm going to document all things monster related here.

So that means....

• pictures of my finished creatures
• possible patterns for the students
• any information I find regarding donating the monsters
• links to monster inspiration
• ideas for the classroom in general
• basic sewing help
• AND anything else I deem appropriate.

So for now I'm just going to upload a few pictures of the monsters I have created so far, and then we will see how it goes from there.

I called this post a 'Summer Thought' because right now updating a blog on a regular basis should be no problem whatsoever, of course my daily to do list only consists of cooking, cleaning, and crafting.... We will see if this continues when the school year actually starts.

This is Bucky, my first monster.
He will be the model for the first template I create for the students.
His monster type is of the Key family.

A close up of Bucky's face. His eyes are all like o_O!

This patch was just to showcase the heart stitch the
 school's sewing machine could do.

A tag to show this was a Gokcen Creation.
 The G was stitched by the machine which is pretty cool.

Bucky from behind. A cute little button tail.

This is Pinky. She is also of the Key family.
I made her right after finishing Bucky so I could
 give her to my sister for her birthday.

A close up of her face. I fixed the little mustache
 like threads before giving her to her new home.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE!!! Pinky's tail....
this is a technique I will be using again for sure!

This little guy was made from a pattern I bought on
Etsy here. He is going to be my classroom mascot.

This is Colonel Glomp. I made him using a tutorial I found on Youtube from
Threadbangers. Click HERE to see it.

He's got a really neat pocket mouth. I haven't come up with a
name for his family of monsters. I do know that this style
might be too complicated to have as a template for my
students.

His hears, legs and bum have popcorn kernels in them so they
would hang down.

This little guy (girl?) doesn't have a name yet. He (she?) was made out of a fabric
that was left over from making pillows for a friend of mine. She (he?) is of the
same monster family as Colonel Glomp.

Instead of making a tag I embroidered the G on this
monster's bum! He (she?) also has a tail!

This is Snowball, a cute little puff created to be sent to my sister-in-law who is currently living in California. This is to
remind her that she was once known as Captain Winter....

Using fun fur has excellent results, but the process is
awfully messy. I like the patter of this "Puff" monster
family, but it might be a bit too simple to use in class.

This is Dot. She is a slug type monster. If you look closely each of her spots is attached
with a different fancy stitch.

Here is Dot's back. More fancy stitches, including the
ever present G!

Finally, this is the machine my principal has let me borrow over the summer. The school purchased 16 of these machines
and he wanted to make sure I got familiar with it so I can teach on it in September. I'm not going to be able to go back to
my old machine... this one is incredible.

A few of the 200 stitches the machine is capable of!

All right well that's all for now.
I will continue to make monsters and post my findings here.
Tootles
Mrs. G