Wonderful Weekend with the Girl Scouts

What happens when you take 14 Girl Scouts up to camp and teach them how to quilt? You get 14 very different quilts and 14 very excited girls.

On Saturday afternoon 14 girls ages 9-10 and 5 adults went up to the local Girl Scout camp and as a main event, made quilts. I developed the lesson plan and bought all the fabric, batting, thread etc. We had 13 sewing machines so only two girls had to share.

On Saturday afternoon we discussed the history of quilting and I showed them some different designs of quilts (a Double Wedding Ring, a Log Cabin with applique flowers and vines, and the Trip Around the World that I made). Then after S'Mores we pulled out the fabric. Each girl got to choose her backing fabric first (there were 20 backing fabrics, so even the girl who went last got to make a choice), then we went in backwards order for them to pick their 42 6" squares for the front of the quilt. I was amazed at the different designs and the girls were incredible in their creativity.

Here are some of the designs laid out on the floor prior to any sewing.

I took each girl's picture with her layout and printed it out over night so that in the morning when we started sewing that she could duplicate her layout again (we had to pick up all the fabric because we had to layout the cot sized mattresses and sleeping bags so we could sleep on the floor).

The other adults were wonderful helpers, even those with limited sewing experience. And I think they all learned how to make quilts, too, even though they didn't actually complete one themselves.

What I didn't anticipate was that we would have so many machine problems. I pretty much ran from machine to machine fixing problems. I suspect that many of the problems were caused by user error, but a few of the machines were just flaky.

By the end of the afternoon, 6 girls had fully finished quilts and everyone else's quilt was at least pinned so that she could do the tieing and I will finish the edging of anyone who brings their quilt back to the next GS meeting. I brought three quilts home with me to finish the edging with the tieing already done.

My DD (the rainbow colored quilt above pictured sideways) is so proud of her quilt. She told all the kids at school today that she made a quilt over the weekend and asked tonight if she could take it to school to show everyone. I think she'll take care of it since she knows first hand how much work it was to put it together.

I got a quilt magazine in the mail today and was glancing through it while dinner was cooking. At first, DD was like, "oh, another quilting magazine" like oh, no, how stupid, but then about 15 seconds later she was leaning over it and saying, "oh, I want to see this so I can decide how to make my next quilt". I think she has the bug. So funny.

The weekend was a great success!

More About Girls Scouts

Well, it's taken me a lot more time to cut all the fabric than I anticipated (of course, we've been out of the house every night this week with Camping Club meeting, Girl Scout meeting, and gymnastics). I finally finished the fabric last night around 11pm. Tonight after work I'm going to WalMart to pick up the rest of the things we'll need (batting, thread, pins, needles, etc).

I hope that tonight I can get the batting all cut out and get the felt shapes all cut out (see post below). I bought EQ6 so I plan to put together some simple blocks to give me the shapes for the felt. And of course, I still need to finish the laundry that I started yesterday (yes, I know I said I was going to do it on Monday, but it didn't get downstairs until Weds morning).

Then Friday night I'll put together the portable design board I'm making. I already pulled all of the magazines and a couple of books that I want to take. I still need to find all of my rulers.

Saturday morning I'll play with my new photo printer and camera and make sure they all work well together.

And of course, all of my own equipment needs to be labeled!

We're dropping off the dog at 12 noon on Saturday and meeting the other GS at 2pm. I think I will be ready. Uhhgggg! Anything else????????

Girl Scout Camp, Here We Come!

Well, my company has come and gone and I even got some time Sunday afternoon to play with fabric. As you may know, I volunteered to teach DD's Girl Scout troop how to quilt and the campout is next weekend. So I've been buying fabric so that these 14 girls (ages 9 - 10) can make their own quilt. They all voted about what kinds of colors they wanted and so I went out and found fabric. Yesterday afternoon and evening I sat in front of the TV and cut all the backings out (1 yard long x selvage to selvage wide) and got about half of the 6" squares cut out. I hope to have the other half done tonight (although I need to buy groceries after work and do laundry). I'm waiting to hear back from WalMart about possible donation that I will use for batting and thread. Hopefully I'll hear today.

Here's what I have planned: (This is an overnight from Saturday afternoon through Sunday afternoon)

Saturday afternoon - evening
- 15 minutes of the history of quilts, discussion on types of quilts (whole cloth, pieced, applique, crazy, etc)

- 1 hour Design time - each girl will get to pick one of the backings, then find 42 (6 x 7) squares that she wants to use in her quilt front. I have a digital camera and will take a picture of each girl with her design to give her so that she can remember the layout she chose - with 14 girls, there won't be enough room for everyone to layout their quilts all at the same time. It will also give them a memory as I want the girl in the picture, too.

Sunday
- Sewing and quilting/tieing - there will be 5-6 adult women, including me, so I'm hopeful that I won't get too stressed out running from girl to girl.

Stations (since not every girl will have her own machine, some of the girls will need other things to do while waiting their turn and to give girls a chance to get up and stretch and do something)

• Design a block - I'm making a small design wall and will have felt shapes cut out that they can design a block - squares, triangles, rectangles, etc. I'll take pictures from their final design on that too.
• Needle threading - I'll have different sizes of needles and they will try to thread all the different needles and notice how hard it is for the ones that have really small eyes.
• Measuring - I'll have a bunch of different rulers, including yardsticks, tape measures, etc. and they will have to measure and cut their own yarn for the tieing.
• Quilt Books and Magazines - I'll bring a bunch of my own books and they can look at what the industry is doing.

The only thing that may be a problem is that I may be the only one with a walking foot. Since I'm planning to have the backing pulled up over the front and then sewed down, each of them will need that. I've thought about doing it pillowcase style and turning them inside out, but would need the walking foot for that, too, to make sure that the batting is caught inside. Any ideas? If I have to, I can do them myself on my machine in about 10 minutes each, but that would take alot of time in total.

I'm organized in my head, but know that I still have a lot of things to do before we leave Saturday. Any ideas or thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Have a great week!

Girl Scout Sample Quilt Done

I got the sample quilt that I made for teaching the local Girl Scout troop how to quilt done. Here's the unquilted top.

And here it is all quilted. The blocks are 6" finished blocks. For the binding, I just pulled the back around to the front, folded it over and sewed it down by machine. I don't know what that method is really called, but I call it the diaper method. I had all the fabric in my stash, so it was just a matter of pulling it all together.

When I meet with the troop on Tuesday, I plan to give them a form to fill out for fabric preferences (ie pinks, blues, purple, animal, flower, etc). They will get to pick 2. Then I'll tally all the votes and depending on the turnout, get the fabric in the categories that got the most votes and pre-cut all the squares. Of course, when I made my sample I used the strip piecing method, but I think the girls will have more fun laying out different designs.

I don't think I'll worry about teaching them 1/4 inch seams. Not many machines/feet have good markings. Instead, I'll show them that its important just to have a consistent seam. I also don't think I'll make a big deal about making their corners meet. I want them to have fun doing this and not thinking that this is really hard and over their heads. Maybe I'll even do rectangles instead of squares (gee, does that mean I need to make a new sample?).

Hope everyone is having a good weekend. DD and I are going to a baby shower out of town today so not much time for sewing.

Teaching the Next Generation to Quilt

DD is in our local Girl Scout troop. I've always been the mom who helps out with the camp outs and other outdoor activities.

Well, I volunteered to teach the troop how to quilt. So the troop leaders and I decided to take the girls up to the GS camp (about 1/2 hour away) for an overnight camp out with a major theme of learning to sew/quilt. I'm expecting that we'll have anywhere from 8-14 girls age 9/10. I have 3 machines, the camp has 4 machines, and we'll find out how many of the girls can bring their machines.

My plan is to have them understand the historical nature of quilts (I'll bring along a couple of my older quilts for show and tell), have time for them to do design work, then sew together a simple lap quilt and tie it. I'm hoping we can get it all done.

I'm putting together a couple of samples so they can see what they will be doing and so that I can get some votes on colors and fabric themes so I can go shopping for the fabric for them. I started the first sample last night after I spent about 20 minutes going through my stash. I found a fun fish fabric that I used as a backing for a baby quilt I made several years ago and some solids to coordinate. I need to get the sample done by next Tuesday for the GS meeting. Pictures to follow.

Any ideas or hints on teaching children to sew? Several of them learned basic machine sewing at summer school last year, so not everyone will need machine instruction. Also, has anyone hit up fabric stores (like Jo-Ann's or WalMart) for fabric for a project like this?

Thanks and have a great day.

Laurel