Every year, we try to provide a day camp at the Post for the area Girl Scouts. This year, we had 45 girls who gathered on Saturday for a day of pocket flag folding (and learning flag etiquette), clipping coupons for military commissaries overseas, making soldier greeting cards, decorating gift bags for Veteran Christmas Gift Shops, a banner created from paper and the girls tracing their hands, decorating the card and writing a greeting to a veteran. The banner is then covered with Contac paper, crocheted together and hung in the Post - - the girls' way of saying "Thank you for your service and allowing us to come to your Post" ... and, sewing quilt blocks together for a quilt.
Pictured below are two lap robes, which will become actually three lap robes because I wasn't paying attention to the length, and they will need to have some blocks removed and added together. The blocks are five inches square to begin with. The quilt needs to be 11 blocks across and 13 blocks down. The two quilts I pictured are actually 18 blocks down, so you can see <g>.
The little pinwheel quilt will be a baby quilt for Operation Stork - - a program that provides a Welcome basket to newborn military babies, all branches of service, in the Spokane area. The pinwheels began life as forty pieces of triangulations for 1 and 3/8" finished HST - - I had copied them off a site that someone from here posted (cannot remember where). My 90 year old quilting partner cut, ironed, and stitched all the pinwheels together, after I had done all the sewing of the triangulations. It was Miss Isobel's idea that I add the plain colored blocks between the pinwheels (good thing, too or we wouldn't have even had a baby quilt!).
Anyway, the girls would pick out 6 to 8 pieces of fabric, sew them together 2x2, take them to the "iron lady" to have them pressed, come back and sew the twosies into foursies, and so on until they had all their chosen fabrics together, at which point, they went to the pool table (covered by plywood and a sheet) to arrange them - - my idea of a quick design wall. I had four machines, four quilters to help the girls, and during lunch and closing events, we joined all the blocks the girls had put together.
Between each set of 5-inch blocks, before the girl went to the "iron lady", we grabbed the pinwheel blocks and used them as a "courtesy block". In this manner, we did not have to cut long lengths of thread, which never seem to make it into the trash <g> ... hope you enjoy the results of our most recent "Girl Scout Day Camp at the Post". <wave>

edit -- the solid color block in the baby quilt is actually a lilac (which under SOME lights looked like a light blue!) ... but, definitely it is NOT the gray that it looks like to me here :?

and, the last lap robe ... if it looks different between the two pictures below, it is because instead of standing in one place and taking both pictures, as I did in the lap robe above, I stood at the foot the quilt and then moved to the top of the quilt ... Don't know if I helped or hurt with that little maneuver! LOL

Sounds like a wonderful day :mrgreen: The quilts are great and for a wonderful cause :thumbup:

What a wonderful day for those girls...and so many lessons learned!!

Sounds like a wonderful day. I'm sure the girls learned a lot.

Ahhhh, Girl Scout day camp. Ours lasts a week every summer. Lots of memories there. It looks like you had a very successful day.

What fun everyone must have had. The quilts came out beautifully, nice work gals :D

what fun! I know how it goes when trying to organize such a big operation! Glad it was a success! Do you have any hair left? :shock:

What awesome quilt tops!!! The girls did a wonderful job on them :D :D :D
I wonder how many will continue on with quilting :wink:
You all made some wonderful memories, and taught this Girl Scout troop so many great things!!! 8) 8) 8)

Thank you for all the kudos to the girls.
I was impressed that the girls started badgering GS leaders about doing the Day Camp as soon as school started.
Pretty nice to have young people know that Veterans' Day is coming, and it looks like we have begun a tradition!
I have all my hair, still.
Just so everyone knows how fun I am to work with: Every one of my volunteers are looking forward to NEXT YEAR! The girls really made a good impression <g>.