Pincushion

If you love to sew pin cushions, you’ll love Better Homes & Gardens’ Bags, Pillows & Pincushions 2009 magazine.

The magazine has instructions and patterns for stacked pincushions – here’s an example.

 

More bird softie ornaments!

These use a pattern from Sew Pretty Christmas Homestyle and are made of felt with embroidery.  I used stencils for the words ‘Joy’ and ‘Love’ and hand embroidered flowers using a variety of stitches – satin, oyster, stem, french knot, etc.  I used a stamp pad with sand colored ink to make the white birds a bit antique-looking.

 

Gingerbread house

I love Therese Laskey’s The Softies Kit from which I created this mini gingerbread house.

 

Another Spool Sewing bird softie

Here are more birds that I made following the spool sewing pattern.  I used felt for the body and cotton fabric for the underside.  I embroidered the front and added a bead for the eye.

 

 

 

 

 

Here are some mini birds that will make nice ornaments. I made poinsettia flowers using oyster stitches and french knots.

 

Half eaten gingerbread man ornaments

I made these gingerbread ornaments from felt, using Elsie Marley’s pattern/instructions at http://elsiemarley.wordpress.com/2007/12/19/pattern-for-a-half-eaten-gingerbread-man/

Thanks for the inspiration, Elsie!

 

Softies trio

To give you an idea of scale, my hubby photographed my first three softies together. Note that the dog sits on a standard pin cushion.

 

Bird softie

Using the free pattern from Spool Sewing, I created this softie from felt and embellished it with embroidery. The inspiration for the stitching came from Doodle Stitching: Fresh & Fun Embroidery for Beginners by Aimee Ray.

This is my first bird softie and is unfinished (still open at the top) because I’m considering sewing a ribbon hanger at the top and adding a satin-stitched or seed bead eye. When it is done, I’ll post the photo on the Flickr Spool Bird Softies group.

I am also considering making Christmas-themed birds with holiday embroidery on it. If you have ideas, please post a comment and share! I am an embroidery and softie novice and appreciate any ideas/advice.

 

Mini dog softie

I just bought a book on softies that is fantastic: Softies: Simple Instructions for 25 Plush Pals by Therese Laskey

This book is loaded with great ideas and I made my second softie following the dog pattern and embellished it with embroidery. I took the idea for the eye from the rabbit doll in Laskey’s book – it includes a seed bead.

 

Owl Softie

An avid cross-stitcher, I recently started learning embroidery and am loving it! I learned from two great books:

Stitch-It Kit by Jenny Hart and Doodle Stitching: Fresh & Fun Embroidery for Beginners by Aimee Ray.

Hart’s book is a great starter with a lot of nice transfer patterns, starter supplies, and towels.

Ray’s book is inspiring – I was inspired to create my first softie:

Owl softie

 

Interested in Teaching Online or Using Laulima (Sakai)?

KapCC has created a self-paced online course for faculty who wish to teach online using Laulima. This is also appropriate for faculty interested in enhancing their face-to-face courses with Laulima. There are many helpful resources for those teaching with technology including resources that will save time and effort in course development. More information about this online professional development opportunity is available at http://www2.hawaii.edu/~maryh/DE/DEProgram.html

Anyone who completes the entire sequence will be awarded a Distance Learning/Laulima Professional Development Program certificate. Some faculty have been able to get CE units from their professional associations/organizations with this certificate.

At KapCC, we will enhance this online resource with a face-to-face workshop on how to get started in the course and Laulima, as well as monthly Laulima support sessions. These events are open to faculty/staff from any UH system school. To see a list of KapCC sessions, go to http://makahiki.kcc.hawaii.edu/wks/