What happens when you get a group of kids together that like to sew and knit? In the case of my kids' 4-H club, a new afghan for charity.

Yesterday the kids' 4-H Club put together an afghan for the Warm Up America! program. It's a non-profit that encourages community groups to knit or crochet afghans for people in need.

Basically this whole project started with my girls wanting to learn to knit. I taught them the basic knit stitch (all I know!) and they found they liked it and ran across the Warm Up America! website when looking for simple knit patterns. The only problem was that my girls' were beginner knitters and after knitting their first squares found that they weren't exactly, well, square.

That prompted me to consider making a completed afghan to donate to the program because I could work their not-so-square pieces into the strips needed for the afghan. I spoke with the girls' 4-H leader about making it a service learning project for the club and she thought it was a great idea.

It worked out that about 7 of the 49 squares were knit by the kids; the rest were crocheted by an adult (i.e., me - I crochet much better than I knit) over the course of a couple of months.

I wasn't sure how long it would take for the kids to actually put the whole thing together at the meeting so I did some hand-wringing (it's in my nature to over-think things) about the best way to organize the squares for the kids. Surprisingly though, it took less than 2 hours for them to hand-sew the squares together (which was thanks in large part to a couple of the older girls' focus and skill!).

The speedy, skillful sewers of the day!

Once the afghan was put together, some of the kids got silly wrapping themselves up in the afghan.

Even though not all of the squares of yarn were baby soft, it really was soft and "snugly" (as L. and her friend C. put it).

And there were a lot of proud faces after completing this service learning project.

I had ordered some 4-H tattoos for the meeting since they were working with their hands for the project and the kids had a lot of fun with them.

"A 4-H Star"

See more photos of the project in My.MaineToday.com

If you are interested in this type of project, you should check out the Warm Up America! website. They have directions and patterns to make single squares or strips (which you can make only a single one - of the specified measurements - and mail it to be included in a future afghan) or organize a group to make a full-size afghan.

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