Busy Camp Day

 Before I begin with this post's subject I have to ask.  Ceci is thinking of her quilt because I told her to begin thinking while I'm working on Adelaide's.  While she was here over the weekend she talked about some of the things she would like.  Turns out while she is thinking of the images she is also certain in requesting some of the fabrics she had in her previous quilts, starting with the one I made when she was born.  I gulped.  

Her job will be to get pictures to me of the fabrics she wants and then I have to see if I can find them - I thought almost certainly they won't be in my stash anymore as scraps and if they are they will be just that...scraps.  I did find a few.  Can't believe it!

So.  My question to you is how do I search out fabrics that could be 15 years old?  I told her I'd do what I could but no promises and some might just have to be close but not the actual.  Any ideas?  Websites? 

Today was the Lowell Museum's day camp  for kids.  We had a good size group and we kept them very busy.  They chose what they wanted to do from a list of activities.

Friend Laurie and I brainstormed for months about ours.  We were going to sew a first flag of the colonies, mostly referred to at the Betsy Ross flag.  Over the months we thought of every twist and turn we could imagine.  Our ideas morphed and simplified and finally given we would have the kids for a little over an hour, came up with felt.  

We tested our idea on three kids we knew who were of the age.  We tweaked even more, taking away the concept of the kids placing the stripes with US placing the stripes and dotting a bit of glue on the ends so they stayed in place for the sewing.  Wrong.  Glue doesn't hold felt, it sinks in and forms a glob that dries like cement and no needle would go through no matter how hard I tried.  

I started over and basted the strips at the beginning and the end of each stripe and that worked.

Before

During

Our job was to tie knots and thread needles. The kids were really into the project and SO proud of themselves when they finished!

First group we had nine kids, second group we had six.  The second group was mostly boys and they did the best stitching!

I loved their concentration.  Definitely used the stitch and stab method.

One girl made me laugh with her sewing the tablecloth to her piece.  She lifted it up and up came the table covering.  I told her I did the same thing when I was putting the basting stitched in the beginning and end of the rows because the piece was laying flat and caught the bottom.

I didn't get to see all of the projects but this one was printing with invisible ink like the spies did.

We had a lesson in soldiering

And there was a project of plate painting.  

There was tin can punching (Paul Revere's lantern) and beading a flag and stamping and writing with a quill and string art and designing a boat that would float. I didn't get pictures of those activities because Laurie and I had our hands full with our group.  

Each summer the day camp is a lot of fun but this one was particularly so.