I enjoyed creating these little fellows and I want to share how  I did it.   

Here is the pattern on quarter inch paper so you can see the size of the pattern parts.   I will add the size of the units as  I use them.

1. Cut four  yellow body parts.  ( that is two and a half inches on the bottom and at 3 inches from the bottom edge begin a gradual taper to a point  5 and 1/4” from the bottom – try to keep it rounded.  If you want a taller minion add to the strait sides of the minion.

2.  Leave one part plain( this will be the back.    Stitch hair on two of the units if you want the Minion to have hair.   Cut the goggles( see the pattern- they look like an eight on its side)   On the last side  glue the  goggle eyes behind the goggles and then stitch around the eyes.   Follow this with a mouth.

3.  Now carefully stich he units together doing one side to the back and one side to the front and then stitching the  two units together.  If you want stick up hair add it when you do the seaming.   Turn

4. Lightly stuff the top of the body.  Now take a narrow strip of gray felt and stitch it around the head to create the goggle band.

5. Take two of the pipe cleaners  and fold the first in half cut in the center.  Fold this pipe cleaner in half. This will become the center finger of the hand.   Then fold the second piece of  pipe cleaner in half- then fold up about a 1/2” and then down again  This creates a “M”  shape  that needs  to  wrap  around the remaining section of the pipe cleaner toward the cut  end.  Take one of the yellow felt rectangles that is  1” X  1 3/4” and rap it around the pipe cleaners and stitch it closed with yellow thread. ( repeat step 5 to do a second arm)

6.  Position one arm in the center of the left side of the body  about 1/2” below the goggle band and stitch it to the body.     Repeat for the right side of the minion.

7. Take the pocket and stich  a “G” in the center of the black diamond that will then be stitched to the center of the pocket.   The pocket with the “G” then gets stitched to the  pants unit.   I  trim away about 1/3” from the pants unit to create the “bib”  and begin to attach the pocket.    Using a running stitch I work around the pocket and start across the bib stitching the pans to the body as I go.

8.  At the corner I stop and add the suspenders with a small button on top.  I continue stitching the pants to the body  around  to the back.

9.  The suspender needs to be pinned in place if you want them to cross.  The second suspender needs to be pinned on the front and on the back and stitched down when it is reached.   I overlap the front and back and then trim.   Continue to the running stitch around to the front of the minion and bury the thread on the inside when the circuit is complete.

10.   Stitch closed the back of the pants  with blue thread and star to add the blue base circle to the minion.    Do  not stitch too far around the circle.

11.  Legs  are made with  a the pipe cleaner each.     Fold in   half  and make a small foot at the end.    Using one of the two black rectangles that is 1”  X 2” warp the unit around the leg above the fold and stitch to the  pipe cleaner and end.   Do the same to the second leg.   Then stitch the blue unit to the top of the leg in the same manner.

12.  The toe of the boot is made form the arched black felt .  One side of the bottom of the arch is tacked to the heel and then wrapped around the pipe cleaner toe.   stich the unit together tucking the top in over the toe and back.

13.    Add a bit more stuffing and start to stitch around the bottom of the Minion.    The legs are then stitched to the front of the body unit below the suspenders as one reaches that point on the circle.   Keep stuffing as you work forward so that it is full enough to set flat and hold its shape.

The materials list:

1.  one sheet of yellow, blue, black and gray  felt( about .29 cents each  at Michaels)

2.  Three black pipe cleansers

3. goggle eyes

4. small buttons

5. embroidery thread  black and blue

6 Batting to stuff the minion with

Equipment: scissors,  needles and a sewing machine is nice- but the parts can all be connected by hand

Happy Thanksgiving  Day to all!

Carol

Dear Readers,

I am unable to download images for some reason.  I will get help and then post a late blog.  Watch for developments.

Carol

 Hello,

QBL for this year is again complete.  As usual  I had a wonderful and creative experience.   It all got started three weeks ago now when we started setting up the show for another year.  I always find it a bit surprising how we can transform the gym into a study of color and pattern in the course of two days.

Then on Sunday we all begin with a banquet and get to see the old friends that  help pull us back year after year. Classes begin on Monday morning and then we start our real growing, stretching and learning.   I took classes this year from two fine teachers.  Week one was a Color class with Rosalie Dace and week two I worked with Valerie  Goodwin- Exploring Design Principles.

We started with  two days of design exercise.  This shot is of a technique that Rosalie taught us to achieve thin lines of color in one’s work.  The picture is of some thin lines by Sally Abrams using the technique.  We started our  final project on Wed.  I challenged myself to work with Orange and Purples and pinned all of this up on Wed eve before I left the class.  I decided it was too much to work with all of these colors and pulled back and limited myself to mostly the purples with oranges accents.   Then I applied what we had been taught about value and selected some Fuchsia of the same value as the orange to partner with it.   I went to my usual building technique and started to layout my new project.     I did insert some slender lines, but mine are not as good as what Sally demonstrated from what Rosalie taught us.

There were events to supplement our classes every night.  Monday evening after show  and tell we left the audtorium to find a double rainbow in the western sky.  The second bow is very pale and to the right , but it is there.    Then on Tue evening before the Mini Mall there was a third rainbow in the evening sky.    What a great time to be studying and thinking about color.

 

I did pass out my little Creative Assistants again this year.   Not only was I rewarded by lots of hugs and smiles for the little fellows, Rosalie surprised me with a little doll of a similar nature from South Africa.    I feel so  honored by this  gift as I know she has limited space in her suitcase because she comes to the states to teach for six mouth stretches.

Along with all the  planned stimulation there are also lots of sharing of ideas and discussions going on about all sorts of other ideas at meals and in dorm rooms.     The atmosphere is super charged with ideas.

Then we start week two.    I was in class with Valerie Goodwin and we started with design exercises using the seven design elements in paper. This first one is Rythem

 

Then Pattern.

This third  one is Movement

We then posted the results in the hall under the correct titles and  talked about them.

 

 Contrast

Emphasis

 

 

 

Then we followed up the  paper exercises with   fabric ones using her techniques  for building up the surface.

Balance

Unity

 

She further challenged us with two word contrasts as our final project.  For that she added a twist, because not only did we choose a two word combo,  but she then gave us all a second two work combo that she felt we needed.     Then it got real quiet as we tackled our individual challenges.  Mine

words were  Transition/Culminaton and Expansion and Contraction.  QBL is so full of helpful folks and it happens everywhere.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This shot is of two of my classmates Robin and Chris,  talking possible solutions.

Randy is another long time friend that was in my class and she was just across the table

from me.  It was wonderful to watch how she worked on the problems.

 

 

Of course I visited my friends and did all the other activites of QBL the second week as well.   I enjoyed   Valerie’s talk at the Schhweinfurth Art Center  too.

 

This photo is of Donna Lamb the director of QBL and the Art  Center talking with Elizabeth Busch at that event.

 

I visited friends in other classes and looked at what they were doing on Walk About Day.

It is always fun to see what is happening outside one’s own classroom.

Ethel with work from Rosalie Dace’s week two class.

 

 

The last evening of QBL we have class show and tell where folks show off the last days of work .  This shot is of Barbara with her friend Kitsy,

 in the bathroom where she changed into the dress she had created, fitted and put together in Studio Class.  She looked great at show ans tell.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Then there was the final event- teacher apron auction to raise funds for the QBL  scholarships for next year.

Dorothy Caldwell

 

 

 

 

Elizabeth Busch

 

 

Victoria  Findlay Wolfe

 

Valerie   Goodwin

 

 

Philippa Naylor

 

 

 

 

It was a wonderful two weeks and  am so delighted that I can attend.  I always get so much out of going to this conference.  For years it was the only contact I had with other quilters from one year to the next and it served me well.  I would encourage anyone who is at all interested in this art form to attend this next year.

Keep Creating

Carol

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Hello,

I have not been home 24 hours yet and I am still a bit out of it as far as time is concerned, but I enjoyed myself a lot on this trip.   We got ourselves settled in  at the Hotel Atlantic and went of a Metro trip to  the center of Paris and walked to Notre Dame Cathedral.   It is much larger than one expects and all the carving in the stone is amazing as well

as a wonderful interior.  We ended up walking all the way around the building.    We ate dinner on the south bank of the Seine and enjoyed watching the tourists stroll by us in our outside cafe.    The second full day we got on board the train and went out of Paris to see Monet’s home.   This photo is of his garden pool.    There were so many colors and textures.  All the gardens  were so very beautiful with purple rose and lots of iris in bloom.  I took tones of photos and know that I will use some of them as jumping off places for new work.    You could not take any photos in the house, but it was  a grand  feast for the eye as well.

Then next day we went to the  antique  market.    This shot of the diving helmet is only one of the many wonderful items we looked at.  Jen is an a dealer and she knew some of the  booths we visited.  She was the only one who purchased anything, but it was like visiting a museum where one could get really close and even touch the displays.    Jen was also our French speaker and that made our visit so much easier!    She  is fearless about Paris and  willing to just take off in new directions so that we  tried areas of the city that even she,  in her seven years of travel there,  had never ventured into.    This wonderful sculpture was in the square where we  went underground for the metro every day at the St-Lazare station.  It also served as our marker when we came home in the evenings- a welcome sight that told us we were close to home.   Jen had enough confidence in us  to send us home on the Metro without her on the third day.

Went to the Grand Promade the next day  and started our walk to the Louvre with Nepolian’s  Egyptian Obelisque.       The visual feast of the Louvre is amazing.  We did see the Mona Lisa and spent the morning looking at paintings.  After lunch we walked many gallery’s full of marble statuary.  I thought this face was very lovely- but I have so many photos that again it was hard to choose just one to present.        We then went down to the Seine and took a boat curse.  We got off  walked up to the  Eiffel Tower  along the river enjoying the parks, the bridges  and the sun set along the way.     This shot is of Barb holding up one of the scuptures- even though I did  not hide the base at all.  It is a good shot of how happy we all felt about the weather and the experience.     Everywhere I looked there were textures and images that I just enjoyed.

It was 9:00 in the evening when I took this shot of the Eiffel   Tower with all the sparkling lights going off  at dusk.  It was beautiful and  great to watch.   I was so glad that we waited until evening to see this  and did not visit the tower earlier.

We went to  visit one of the biggest and oldest cemeteries in Paris the next day- Cimetier Du Pere Lachaise.    The stone work there was wonderful too.   Every bit of land was packed with muslims.   They represented  about 250 years of different types of grave types used  in Paris.  I was espically  fasinated by the ceramic wreaths.     There were many types of flowers represented from roses and poppies to violets.  The ceramic work was so very thin as these roses show.  Many flowers showed the effects of pollution and were black- but that could be rubbed off. We only experienced one day of rain on our trip- that was on  Tuesday before we came home.    We spent that day shopping at all the stores on Avenue De Champs and Checking out the Arc de Triomphe.   It is having some work done on the top so I cut that off in this photo.  Again wonderful stone work  here.

Every day we walked the staircase in our hotel. We were on the fourth floor and I just loved looking down.    We decided we liked the back stairs the most as the wood  did not seem to be as worn as the front stair.    I did take my pedometer and we counted the steps each day.  They were all well beyond 10,000  and one day we did almost  15,000.     I loved all the different roof lines and doorways.    It was a very enjoyable trip and I have lots of great memories as well as a ton of photos.

Hugs

Carol

Hello-

Yesterday I forgot to add to the post the info about the Rochester Contemporary Art Center  the info about the wed sight and how you  can be a part of this even if you are interested. The add :

Rochester Contemporary Art Center

137 East Ave

Rochester NY 14604

info@rochestercontemporary.org

Phone # 1 855-753-9334

Look at the web sight and join the fun

Carol