I sew too, we made Pioneer Bonnets

Yesterday was Wednesday and each Wednesday we have our youth meetings at the church. I am a Young Women’s leader and part of my responsibility is to help provide fun, spiritual activities for the girls. Last night’s activity was a fun one that I thought I would share with you.

There may be others of you out there that could use this information. At the end of May this year our youth are going on a 26 mile pioneer trek in the mountains of Arizona. For three days, they will live as the pioneers did. So everyone is getting their things ready and doing extra walking to prepare. Last night I had prepared the things we needed for my class to make these pioneer bonnets.

If you have not noticed by now, most of the things I learn and use and post have come from research to find the easiest prettiest patterns and methods. This bonnet pattern is just that, simple and cute! After the girls helped make these bonnets last night, they could not take them off. And these are some of the same girls that hated the idea of having to wear one.

I personally can make one of these bonnets in an hour.  last night there were three sewing machines, seven girls and three adult leaders working and we were able to produce the 8 bonnets our class needed in an hour and 15 minutes. of course, I did do prep work ahead.  I had all the pieces cut and the gathering stitching all done and the casing stitching finished also the brims were put together.  So I guess I made the kits.  When the girls all got together, they had to do the gathering and pinning all the components together and then have them sewn together on the machines.

I had one young woman who her whole job was to sew all the ties. I had them cut out but she made them all into the ties for he bonnets.  It was nice to hear her after she had finished and I told her we could not have completed the project with out her ability to use tha machine, she learned this skill working on a Personal Progress Value Project last year, she said, “wow, I feel so accomplished!”  it was very heart warming to see this young woman beam at her accomplishment and feel the joy of serving all of the girls in her class.  As she was sewing all of the straps and I was giving aid and direction to the other girls I also worked on and finished her bonnet.

In the pattern the lady gives dimensions for different sizes and she states that she has not made all the sizes so she was not sure really if her dimensions were accurate. So I will tell you that the 20×20 square that she actually has you working for your experiment, fit me and all of our 15-year-old young women.

The link to the pattern is in my resources to the left. If you have a youth group going on a pioneer trek or you have a little girl who likes to play dress up or maybe you are a doll maker who needs a bonnet pattern, I hope this pattern I found will sit your purpose.

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