Teaching "collaging"

Yes, you are right. I really need to put some more quilting into the border of the Great Aussie Quilt. Rats. I wanted to do some other sewing today but maybe I should give the GAQ a bit more thought...

Because we have started summer vacation, I am on a very minimum teaching schedule. I sort of leave it up to the kids to decide if they want to do English or take the month and a half off. Most of the kids (and parents) opt for taking the summer off (so that means I haven't seen some kids since the beginning of June) but I had two girls that said they wanted to come.

These two don't actually SAY anything. They are two of the students from one class that I disbanded because I got so little reaction and participation out of any of them. The two girls (and a boy) came back in tears and said they really wanted to continue English (I couldn't believe my ears!) and they've been coming for another year now. Not much better in the participation department but I've decided not to force them and maybe I can influence them positively anyway. Talk about dead-pan. These two girls never smile, never take the initiative in ANYTHING! I don't even think they LIKE me!

But they said they wanted to come on Thursday so I told their parents that was fine but we wouldn't be working in the book (and leaving the boy behind... he can't come). Instead we would be sewing.

I racked my brain trying to think of a good sewing activity and in the end we never did sewing, we did "collaging"! I got out my bright fabric and my Happy Villages book and directed them on cutting fabric shapes, placing them on batting and then adding decorative roofs, doors, windows and stairways. Most of the work was done in silence and they declined any snacks I offered them but they actually worked away about three hours.

Friday morning I machine quilted the collages for the girls. I figured that since I was still very unsure of my freehand quilting skills, that I couldn't just put a couple of pre-teenage girls who have never used a sewing machine in front of a quilting foot and say "Go".

Actually the next step is to put binding on these. So far the girls haven't done any sewing on our sewing activity. But while they might be able to sew binding on with the sewing machine, how about hand stitching the mitered corners? And the hand sewing itself is a long boring job... And these girls aren't going to chat with me while they do it... The book calls for putting the collages on felt and hiding the raw edges with rick rack but I can't find felt this large.

What would you do? Piece together some squares of felt? Pink the edges and leave it? Teach the girls the fundamentals of sewing on binding (three more hours of silent handwork?) Do it for them and start another project? Maybe piecing?

I've got til Thursday to decide my next step...