New embroidery e-book and a freebie

Carina Envoldsen-Harris of Carina’s Craftblog has published a stitchery e-book! And she’s celebrating by sharing an autumn pattern freebie.

Small Stitches is available from Polka & Bloom, which says,

Small Stitches has 22 pages aimed at getting you started with embroidery in a fun way. It has a short introduction to the basic tools and materials you need. The beauty of embroidery is that you dont need a lot of kit, so it is a fairly economic craft to throw yourself at.
Small Stitches covers the following stitches: Straight stitch • Running stitch • Back stitch •French knot • Daisy stitch • Chain stitch • Cross stitch • Star stitch • Satin stitch • Blanket stitch • Buttonhole wheel
There are 9 patterns in the book. Most of them use just 2 or 3 stitches, progressing with the stitch directions…
The patterns range from very simple designs like a leaf or a paisley pattern to more intricate ones that use several colours and stitches.

The book costs just US $10.00, and it will be sent to you by e-mail in PDF format within 24 hours after payment. See more and get the links from Carina’s post.

And remember to download the free autumn-leaf pattern.

When my daughter was younger she had a ton of LEGO bricks, and I’m honestly a little sad we got rid of most of them because there are so many fun things to do with LEGOs outside of the kits you bought them in.

I love seeing all the ideas people have for LEGO building challenges, and I have shared some ideas for LEGO games before, but I saw one on Pinterest the other day that I felt was worth a mention.

This one is for those ’80s and ’90s kids who spent sick days home from school watching “The Price is Right”: LEGO Plinko!

For those who don’t know about Plinko, the original was a giant peg board set up at an angle and the contestant would drop a flat disc at the top of the board. As it moved down the board it would hit the pegs and change the way it moved, and there would be different prizes in the slots at the bottom where the piece would land.

This version from Play Party Game works on the same principle, using LEGO bricks to make the game board and marbles in place of the Plinko disc since your game board isn’t flat.

You can really use whatever bricks you have for this build, and while it shows all the pegs the same size and evenly spaced, you can play with different configurations and see what happens. It’s engineering and a game!

And while you’re playing with your LEGOs, make sure to check out this post from Kids Craft Room that includes minute to win it style games you can do with LEGO. From speed sorting to tower building as fast as you can, these ideas are sure to get you thinking about different ways to play with LEGO.

And if you need even more ideas, check out my post with LEGO building challenges you can print out for kids (and adults!) to try.

Have you read?