We finished our first journey!

Well, we finished our first Daisy Journey last night! I decided to try to finish Welcome to the Daisy Garden last night because my co-leader, Becke, is close to having her baby, and due to holidays and council events, the troop won't meet again until December. So I thought it would be nice to finish the book while she was still with us (she will be on maternity leave for the rest of the year.)

By finishing our journey book, our newest troop member earned her Daisy petals and the entire troop earned their journey patch. I am working today on sewing my daughter's to her vest. I actually decided to resew most of her fun patches on her vest. I had spaced them liberally and I was worried there may not have been room for the patches we earn this year in scouts. I took the opportunity to fix a few things that were bothering me -- I had sewn her petals on with a variegated rainbow thread that is cute on fun patches but just didn't work on the petals. I usually sew patches on with my sewing machine's zigzag stitch. If I can't match the patch's color with my thread, I try to use a contrasting thread from the patch itself, and if all else fails, I use my rainbow thread. It usually works out pretty well. My theory is, if you're going to see my stitches, then SEE my stitches. On the journey patch though, I decided to sew the background patch on with my machine and then hand-sew the 3 smaller patches on. It is so much easier to hide stitches when they are hand sewn.

Much better!

Our second meeting of the year was so much better than the first! We started out with practicing the Promise and the Law together. The girls are getting pretty good at them, although more than one has problems holding up the 3 fingers.

Next, the F. earned her "Animal Tracks" patch. She told us about her family vacation to North Dakota where they went to the National Fish Hatchery and on nature hikes. With the help of her mom, F. found the tracks of animals like deer. Then the made a circle out of poster board--using paper clips to hold it together, and then mixed plaster of paris. (F.'s mom brought the p.o.p. pre-measured in plastic bags, then added bottled water and mixed it when needed.) We were able to see the tracks of the deer very clearly.

We were able to read Chapters 1 and 2 from our journey books. The girls are assigned to do the workbook pages of those chapters as homework for our next meeting. I think I'll send out an email reminding them about a week before our next meeting. We also planted our herb gardens. I was able to buy 4 herb garden kits at a local store when they were clearanced at the end of summer. The herbs in each garden are Lavender, Oregano and Thyme. The girls worked together to plant the seeds. I will keep the gardens here at my house transporting them to each meeting so the girls can see the plants' progress.

Our craft this week was to finish the pincushion sewing kits we started last week. Last week the girls chose the fabric they wanted to cover the pincushion. We then glued it onto the Styrofoam and then to the lid of the little plastic containers. This week the girls glued a ribbon around the edge of the Styrofoam (pinning it in place until dry) and then I gave them each 2 tiny spools of thread for their kits. Here is a picture of my pincushion sewing kit.


I also handed out the fleece water bottle carrier bags. My daughter and I sewed them at home and then cut the fringe in for each girl. The girls' job now is to tie the fringes to complete the bag. Once they have brought it to show me they have completed it, they will receive a patch with their name and troop number to glue on to their bag. This will be the second of their 5 fashion projects towards earning their fashion patches.

The first meeting of the year is always the worst!

We had our first meeting of the year last week, and I felt like it was pretty chaotic. The girls were excited to see each other and so I had a hard time getting them calmed down and focused on the meeting. We started out by talking about the summer and practicing the promise and the law. Then we started the Daisy Journey book, working through the character introductions and workbook pages. We officially started our simple sewing projects with our pin cushions and water-bottle carrier bags. The sewing machines were not all agreeing with us, so it was interesting to say the least.

I look forward to our meeting this week where Faith will earn her individual patch for animal tracks, we will read the first chapter of the book, plant our herb gardens and finish our pin cushions by gluing a fancy ribbon around them. I purchased a small sewing kit with enough mini-spools of thread to give the girls each 2 colors. I would like to give them each a needle-threader but have yet to find that many of them.

Rather than transport the sewing machines back and forth, which seems to upset how well they run, Sammi and I sewed the water-carrier bags and they are now ready for each girl to do her tying and glue on her patch identifying it as hers.

Starting our second year!

We are getting ready to start our second year together as a troop! It's so exciting. There are so many ideas bouncing around in my head. We will start this year with our first Daisy Journey, "Welcome to the Daisy Flower Garden". The journey book will teach us about becoming leaders.

We will also be learning to do basic sewing. Our first project will be making pincushions using this design:

Click here to see the full tutorial on CraftPudding.
The only difference is that I will be using small plastic jars instead of baby food jars. The plastic jars are much less breakable and so are better suited to the girls. I plan to have the girls work on their pincushions at our first meeting in September after we finish our work in the Journey books. I am also planning to have 2 or 3 sewing machines at the meeting so that the girls can start working on their water bottle carriers.
The carriers are made from fleece. I think fleece is nice to start with since it doesn't fray. The girls will sew a simple zig-zag seam to make the bag and then can cut the fleece to tie the sides into "tassles". You can click here to see a .pdf with instructions. They are rough instructions as I created the project as I went yesterday.
I think that our troop will have nice results taking turns working on projects. The projects will take more than one meeting but that is okay, since girls sometimes have to miss meetings.

Here are some of our goals for 2010-2011:
1. Complete "Welcome to the Daisy Garden" journey
2. Complete 5 simple sewing projects
a. make a pincushion
b. make a water bottle carrier
c. make a pillow
d. make a SWAP sash
e. make a bean bag frog
3. Complete "Between Earth and Sky" journey
4. Host a SWAP