I had so much fun today! My EGA group, well, some of us, anyway, had four different "classes" at the local Girl Scout office and had a nice turn out. From 10 to 12, I did a project with Brownies where we traced the outline of each girl's hand on a piece of cotton fabric, the girls stitched along the lines and then I centered the hand in the hoop, cut off the excess fabric and ran a line of glue along the back side of the hoop to help hold it together. Three or four girls had their projects completely finished and ready to hang. Two or three of them finished the hand and chose to take their piece home to make it into a pillow and one or two brought their project home for "Mom" to help them finish. Another EGA member taught various surface stitches for older girls (Junior Scouts), using a small printed design on a square of fabric. In the afternoon, one member taught Daisy Scouts and Brownies how to make Yarn Dolls, while another introduced older girls (Juniors and beyond) to simple Sashiko projects. The Yarn Dolls aren't really needlework but they are lots of fun and many of the girls made two or at least started a second one to finish at home. One little Daisy Scout has plans to make an entire village. :-))
All of the girls did amazingly well. We re-threaded very few needles for the younger girls and only had two times when a Brownie carried her floss around the edge of the hoop instead of coming up on the same side on which she had gone down. :-)) For my class, we had about 18 or so needles pre-threaded with pink, blue or green floss. As a Brownie finished one thread, we would just give her a new needle of whichever color floss she wanted. That way, we spent more time stitching than threading and knotting. I had forgotten how cute Brownies can be - and the older Scouts also. :-)) They were all eager and enthusiastic and we were lucky to have several adult helpers to assist the girls. We even had the great uncle of one of the girls sit and watch and assist as needed. :-)
The hand projects are on my Facebook page and, if we're lucky, some of the pictures may show up in the EGA magazine some time in the future. :-))
Liz from Humbug