Thursday, May 20, 2010

Sit Upons ~ A Girl Scout Tradition

What is a sit-upon? They are homemade, usually waterproof pads used to protect the user's backside from the cold and damp while "sitting upon" the ground! They are also great for sitting any where the sitting surface is hard... a Girl Scout tradition for camping.

We made our sit upons out of heavy duty table cloths bought at Wal mart (60x102 inches Oblong @ $5.00 each), yarn, old newspapers & plastic shopping bags. We decorated the sit upons with permanent markers and stickers. Each table cloth made 16 sit upons. ("How To" directions below). Here, the girls are decorating their sit upon covers.






"Sit upons" ready to be sat upon!
It had sprinkled rain earlier in the day and the ground was a little damp.
Thank goodness we had our "sit upons" for enjoying the camp fire fun!

HOW WE MADE OUR "SIT UPONS":
  • Pre-cut the tablecloth into rectangle sections with pinking shears. We cut our pieces into 12" x 15" sections since we had large sized table cloths for our large group of 24 Girl Scouts. Discard the side edge pieces since the corners are not square and it's extra fabric anyway.
  • Place two pieces together, insides facing each other.
  • Hole punch around all sides of pre-cut pieces. If your hole punch has a hard time going through, you may hole punch each piece individually. OR, forget the hole punch and yarn idea, and simply use Duct Tape to secure the edges.

  • Decorate the pre-cut pieces with permanent marker. We used a variety of colors as well as stickers. Have each Girl Scout put their name on their sit upon.
  • Cut long pieces of thick colored yarn to be used to stitch the edges closed.
  • Wrap scotch tape around each end to create a tight, hard end for the yarn to more easily go through the hole punches.
  • Stitch the outside edges on 3 of the 4 sides. The girls can stitch with a straight stitch or a whip stitch- whichever they choose. We also used colored pony beads to embellish the yarn as the stitches were done.
  • When 3 of the 4 sides are completed, stuff crunched newspaper and/or plastic shopping bags in the open end. DO NOT OVER STUFF.
  • Finish stitching the 4th side and tie securely.

Your "Sit Upon" is now finished and ready to be sat upon!

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