Fish Softies-- #SewaSoftie

July was #Sewasoftie month with Trixi Symonds of Coloured Buttons.  I loved working with this project creating softies so much so that we created an Owl Softie and a Sewing Kit, earlier this month.  We made one more Softie that I wanted to be sure to share with you before July was finished. Here is our Fish Softie.

We started out with some scrap fabric and Textile Playcolors.  These colors are like the paint sticks that so many art classrooms are using these days.  There are Playcolors and Kwik Sticks... and I'm sure more.  They 'load' like a glue stick. We found them to be a little soft for our Artist (ranging from 6 years-old to 11), however, they create some bright beautiful colors.

I laid out the fabric for the kids. It was a windy day, so you see the rocks holding this down.

The instructions were to draw two dots, create a circle around each dot, and then repeat that one more time to create the eyes.

 

You will see different designs and levels in the fish that were created this day.

The colors have to be set with an iron. 

Our 11 year-old Artist wanted to do a little hand sewing before stuffing it too.  He used buttons to create the teeth.

For some of these kids, this was their first time on the sewing machine so a guild line was very helpful. They simply sewed a 'U' around the fabric with wrong sides out. 

The kids took a break from swimming to stuff their fish.

The fish were closed up with a rubber band.  This was a quick and easy way to make sure the stuffing doesn't come out with out sewing again. It worked well for us because of time, but might be a trick I used in class as well.

To hang and display, we used a paper clasp and wire.  Again, using what was easy. 

And there we have it... Our Fish Softies.