scavenger hunting

I had ridiculous amounts of fun with the guides last night! We went on our scavenger hunt around the town and they solved all the clues and found the leader :)

 

We started at the usual meeting place and then from there they had to solve a clue which led to the start point and then headed to town. They were then sent on two different routes and worked really well as a team solving their clues and hunting for the things they were looking for. As the final clue they were given a sum to do and a tracking symbol to follow. Our team came in first and so they were awarded the challenge cup.

 

a jesters hat

an eel

celebratory marshmallow (yes, that is just 1 marshmallow)

 

 

Actually, it's a mug I bought in Morrison's! So, more of a challenge mug.

 

We're going to let them write their patrol name on it and then will let whoever wins the next challenge have the privilege! At the end of the year we'll determine which patrol gets to keep it and we'll start another one in September. 

 

We've also decided it's time to reconvene the patrols. They have been working as just one patrol for the most part, but as they worked so well in those teams they will be their new patrols. I will be challenging them to get a full patrol asap as well! So we are disbanding the dregs of the patrols and giving them completely new ones.

 

We did have 6 when I first started so there are 4 emblems in the box that are going begging. We've also split up a couple of the guides as one was being very dominating over the other. 

 

I have decided that I will sew all my badges on my hoody and then the guides can see all the good things that we've got to do and they'll keep pushing for us to join in with things locally. Because, badges...

 

And in other news, there is a new post up on madam's blog: Cats and Dogs

teaching myself to embroider

I've been doing a lot of thinking about my crafting recently. I really enjoy the way it calms my mind and I love feeling like I've achieved something when I complete a project. I also like trying to teach myself new skills.

 

I've been working on teaching myself some embroidery skills in the last few days. I was always rubbish at sewing when younger, right down to being banned by my mother from sewing my Guide badges on (there *might* have been an incident when I sewed the sleeve of my blouse closed).

 

But I've been embellishing little bits and pieces for a while. This mainly consists of me doing running, back or blanket stitch. I can chain stitch as well, but I have never learnt cross stitch or things like satin stitch and French knots! So this is my new quest. I have bought madam some plain short sleeved t-shirts for summer and I have decided to add something different to each one.

 

I did the first one the other day. I sewed on a butterfly that had come off an old hair slide and that had been in my craft box for ages. Then I added a little line of stitches to give it some movement. I foolishly didn't take a photo of it before letting her wear it. So, this is how it looked after a full days abuse!

 

 

 

She's asked me to do something similar to what I've done before with her pale blue t-shirt. I haven't got around to it yet as I need some more embroidery thread to make the tail! But this is the one I made when she was 2.

 

 

 

 

I made loads of little felt birds ages ago, along with some flowers and leaves. So I'm using one of these on the new t-shirt and then I'll give it the big chain stitch tail plumes. Cool, huh? It was about my favourite thing I'd done up to that point! I may add some little pockets to the other white t-shirt. I have some really nice purple batik style material.

 

This afternoon (after madam has finished giving herself square eyes watching CBeebies) I shall be going into town and getting some more coloured thread and also some more of the wool I've been using to make my chunky crochet shrug :)

 

I might also attempt to make madam put some different clothes on, she did pick an extraordinarily random outfit this morning... Sunsuit and puffa waistcoat anyone?

 

She was somewhat disappointed when I insisted on her wearing underwear with it! 

Guides and my attempts to guide them

I'm back at Guides tonight. This fills me with slight trepidation as we've been losing numbers recently. This makes for various problems not least of which is the fact that the less Guides there are, the harder it is to do things with them.

 

This sounds counter-intuitive I know, you'd think it would be easier to organise less teenagers tan more. But the problem comes from the way Guides runs. We organise an activity for them to be getting on with now, if there are lots of them the odd one that doesn't want to take part isn't too much trouble. But If you only have 10 Guides and 3 are being difficult it makes it a constant uphill battle.

 

There is also the wondering about why they are coming every week if they don't want to participate. They don't want to do the things we organise and they don't (won't) organise things for themselves so what are they getting out of it?

 

I'm currently pushing for our Guides to take part in one of the Girls in Action projects that are available for us. We've been looking at the Plan UK project and I'm hoping we can finally get it started tonight. The last meeting we had there were so few Guides that it wasn't worth it.

 

I have to confess to a slight obsession with badge accumulation. This is a leftover of my time as a Guide myself. I loved getting new badges for things and even though I loathed sewing them on it never put me off. I'm currently putting my badges on a blanket but I think I might sew them onto my jumper...

 

We need to try and recruit more girls somehow. But we're in a catch 22 at the moment. We can't do very much with the Guides as there are so few of them, and we won't get more girls if we don't do anything. We can't even organise a trip to the cinema with them as they won't all go to the same film! It's crazy.

 

I think I might start planning an end of half-term trip for us now. We don't have a meeting on the last Friday of term as a lot of our Guides never seem to come from that meeting. But I shall organise something with Small Print Larger who is a Young Leader with our troupe and then at least we'll get to go to the cinema even if no-one else comes!

 

I quite want the Guides to have a go at some planting for the Beverley in Bloom project. This would mean our name would go on a plaque somewhere around town. Help get our name out there at least.

 

I really enjoy the time I spend at Guides. I just wish that our Guides seemed to have a bit more enthusiasm sometimes.

 

I have been making madam a knitted owl that came as a free kit on the front of Let's Knit magazine. It's incredibly cute and was really easy to make. I'm half planning to use the leftover wool from crocheting the blankets for my friends twins (due in June!) to make an owl for each of them... Think it'll be really cute to have them match the blankets...

 

I'm glad that I've done some knitting as it's been a while since I have done any. I want to make madam a cardigan and I need to get back into the swing of it...