For the past week I've been working with a group of 10 kids aged 8-10 years old making "critter softies", aka stuffed animals of their own creation. We started off with handsewing simple 2 sided felt shapes. Above there's a gecko, a leopard, and 2 fish. Two more fish below. 
And here are a yellow hamster and 2 puppy dogs. We drew the animals first, then cut patterns out of the drawings. Some of the kids drew from imagination, others looked at an animal encyclopedia. We talked about finding the simple geometric shapes in the animal's picture, and drawing a bit "fatter" than usual so we could make them out of fabric.
We progressed to larger 2-sided creatures, this time made out of white cotton duckcloth with fabric marker detail drawing to make them more colorful, patterned, and realistic, thinking about how the backs and fronts look different. When it came time to sew I had the students control the sewing machine pedal speed while I manipulated the curves with the needle.
Above is a sidewinder snake with amazing abstract patterning. And below is the most elegant swan with felt feather details.
For the last 2 days we looked at how flat geometric shapes become 3-dimensional forms when seamed together, and explored cylinders, pyramids, spheres, and cubes for thinking about more complex sculptural forms. The last project requirement was to have movable limbs by sewing and stuffing the arms etc before assembling and stuffing the body.
Above is a tree kangaroo. It had a tail that curved up the back nearly as long as the body.
Here we have a penguin from the 2nd front/back project, 2 felt-limbed monsters, and a giant shark with stuffed fins and felt flipper.
Here are one boy's creatures, at right his 2 sided snapping turtle and at left a prehistoric shark with stuffed felt tentacles, flat felt fins, and 3 piece body. This kid had amazing attention to detail- note the gills on the shark and the very carefully colored turtle shell.
Above is another version of the giant shark- 2 boys shared a pattern they had drawn together, but chose different fabrics.
Above is one girl's efforts: a 2 sided pigeon with pipe cleaner feet and red-bead eyes (check out the multi-colored stippling on the neck!!!!), and a very cushy "zebra" with bent-down neck as if grazing.
And finally we have a very sweet leopard that looks more like a cat, but with a head-body connection I'm very pleased with. The body opening was gathered closed and then sewn to the back of the already-stuffed-and-closed head.I'm really not sure how we got all of these finished in 5 days. About 30 stuffed animals were created this week, and there was a very free-style open studio feel to the classroom as the kids were independently working and solving problems and helping each other while I mostly sat at the sewing machine to zip seams up for them. It's really magical to see a child's drawing become 3-dimensional. I hope they enjoy playing with them, and they don't sit on a shelf like most sculpture projects.
We made papier mache maracas (in progress above- they were way more colorful in the end) as well as a pinata. The kids drew pinata designs and we voted on the best one- they decided to have their pinata look like a giant piece of candy.
We made paste paper and then folded them into origami boxes with lids. For decorations we cut papel picado banners and strung them on yarn for hanging. But the major endeavor that seemed to consume the kids' interest was when we made paper chain decorations! 
They were determined to make it long enough to reach all the way down the stairs. So there was much preliminary measuring until we were ready to lower it down the stairwell (that's an orange ruler in the boy's hand as he crawled along the length of the chain around the room). To their great delight the paper chain made it all the way from the 3rd floor landing to the basement floor!!!!
It also conveniently stretched most of the perimeter of the children's garden to create a festive atmosphere.
With some latin music playing and plenty of snacks brought by the parents, it was a proper fiesta party! The rope holding the pinata snapped before the pinata broke so I ended up tearing it open to spill out the goodies. 
I tried to build the week's activities in a logical manner, sort of in a reduction print way. We started off creating simple frame formats, blocking out the borders with screen filler and printing rainbow print backgrounds. It was amazing how printing just a simple rectangle background brings up ways to talk about problem-solving in screenprinting, registration, pressure/print technique, sufficient ink, transparency, editioning, etc. And since it was just a background, nobody felt precious about how the prints looked.
On the second day we tried out monoprints on top of the rainbow prints using caran d'ache and transparent base. The kids loved the freedom of drawing and letting their design evolve as the first drawings faded into ghost prints and new designs could be added. We began with a collaborative version so they could learn how, then went at it on their own screens.
Although I had them do a drawing exercise to spark some ideas first, I think only one kid actually used their original drawing as a plan. My 2 favorite ones are these more illustrative ones, one boy's puppy which eventually led to a larger design and another boy's Poseidon below about to wreak havoc on a ship! When the image started ghosting, the student wrote "We ARE DISAPPEARING!!!!" above the ship.
I'm pleased with how well the students cooperated and collaborated. They ended up with both a collaborative and an individual set of monoprint/rainbow prints, a collaborative tie dyed and rainbow-printed "Friends" T-shirt, their own design on a t-shirt, and some even had a t-shirt design swap as they liked their classmates designs. They made effective group design decisions and they were helpful to each other in the printing process and cleanup.
After class yesterday I stopped by Aids Thrift on 5th and Bainbridge out of curiosity- they have quite a silverware and utensil collection. I've seen lots of repurposed household object chimes and lamps, but have always been reluctant to buy one due to a niggling voice in the back of my brain saying "you know, you could just MAKE one!" So today I did!
I still have to print out my photos to really have a good source image for the commission I'm working on, but I've chosen some fabrics to layer up. It will have a beach panorama background, maybe with some shells and horseshoe crabs scuttling the water line, with a smaller inset of the house and garden, maybe as reverse applique.... What's really exciting to me is being brave enough to cut up the 
It's been a real busy week with teaching silkscreen for teens and the new stitch and surface class at Fleisher, plus planning for future projects and classes. I'm looking forward to Saturday night when I can go to the Cathedral for the Summer Show opening reception. You're all invited! This Saturday night, July 17th, 5-7 at the Philadelphia Cathedral, 38th and Chestnut. I have some beachy pieces in the show along with photographs by Elaine Crivelli and paper sculptures by Stephen Robin.
Behind the stark, twisted trunk was a backdrop of the world entitled "Continental Drift" by 
The USA shrank beside Mexico and Guatemala. "Third world" countries loom large and expose our consumeristic dependence on the labor and resources of other, poorer nations. Consumerism is a 
"Field" by 
I don't want to conjecture the reason for the thousand self-inflicted cuts, so I'm just going to say that today I'm reminded of mosquito bites. 
Here's a video I found of more of Grimsley's work:
I was excited to see 
This last one was not in Fiberarts International, but it was upstairs in the PCA's exhibit "Interplay" of Pittsburgh area artists. Becky Siemmons' "How to Draw a Straight Line" follows along with this mathematical sampler idea and includes audience interaction. 
My stitchy fingers want to go along and tack down the intersections or couch down the lines. I love how simple she makes stitching seem. Anyone can do it! Own your creativity!
