Quilting with Girl Scouts...Help?!
 

Not sure if there was a past thread with this topic, but does anyone have any pointers, EASY patterns, best practices, etc. for leading Fourteen 11 yr old, Junior Girl Scouts, eager to sew in making baby quilts for a local charitable organization? (It's not Project Linus, this time...) We'll have approx. 4 hours total start to finish. We can prepare some aspects of the materials ahead of time, but need to leave a lot of the steps to these enthusiastic and very capable young ladies. There will be five or six sewing machines available. Any thoughts?

I have done a post card/pen pal with other girl scouts from around the country. Keep it a monthly theme. Feb. applique and embellish a heart. March make a mini Irish chain, April showers, May flowers, etc. Learn all these techniques in a tiny scale.

Trade jobs about every hour....have some assigned to pressing, some to cutting or matching and pinning, some to sewing, etc. and then trade. Remind them they will each learn all parts of the process this way. I'd also say, don't dumb it down too much; I've taught many 11 year olds who made truly remarkable quilts! I envy you the day's activity!:)

Jan in VA

I forgot to mention that the project day is mid-February. Last year, we finished 7 small blankets/quilts for Project Linus in that 4 hour time frame. Hopefully we will have another couple of hours this time around, and maybe we can have a finish-up session shortly after the planned day. But we need to shoot for start to finish in one session. Tartan, I had not seen that magic block before! Now that's a possibility...

Depending on your requirements, this tutorial from Missouri Star Quilt Co. might be just the thing. It looks very simple.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqwdNqMZ8Ro

Our woman's group did pillow cases with the local Junior troop. It was loads of fun.

My guild did a all day sewing class for girl scouts. We did the burrito pillowcases. We only do ages 10 or above now. The younger ones just wanted to 'mash the pedal' and turn machine knobs.
We now have kits cut in brown bags and the girls were not allowed to pick which kit. We learned if we let them pick they wanted to see all of them and ALWAYS wanted the same one as another girl got first. And the Moms were worse, they wanted their child to pick a color that matched their room or said they didn't understand why so and so got the pretty cat fabric and her daughter loved cats and couldn't find another one. If the moms are suppose to be there to help, forget about that, 99% of them caused more work and frustration.
The pillowcase is all one seam and very forgiving if the seams aren't straight. Our guild now has rigid rules for scout days, not for the girls but for the moms!

I've made bean bags with seven year old Cub Scouts and found them very respectful of the experience (and enthusiastic). Maybe the Warm Wishes pattern? Make the strips all the same size instead of two skinnier ones and one bigger one...
Good luck with your sewing day. I was a Scout for many years and got to travel to other states and India because of it. So I thank you on their behalf.

A couple years ago I did a quilting club with high school kids that had no experience on a sewing machine. My fellow advisor and I decided to have the kids stitch strips together. We figured that trying to do a 1/4 inch seam was going to be a problem and that as long as the seams were even the width of them didn't matter. After 4 to six strips were sewn together I cut into hunks.- I think 10" wide and we put these together to made up long sets. Alternated with plain fabric strips about same width and made something like a Chinese ? Coins quilt. Worked out fairly well.