From a Daisy to a Brownie

Katie traded in her Daisy Girl Scout tunic for a Brownie vest. Her troop had their bridging ceremony last week and they are now Brownies. Katie was squealing with excitement to be a Brownie. I showed her my old sash and Brownie items from 1981, plus this photo of my troop. (I am the first girl on the left in the back row.) I like to think Katie loves the idea of being a Brownie because her mom was one too.

Here’s Katie at her bridging ceremony, as the troops all circled up to end the night. She’s wearing her newly-minted Brownie vest. (Her awesome troop leader sewed ALL of the starting patches on EVERY girl’s vest – by hand! – as a bridging gift.)

Now that the Daisy days are over, what to do with her old tunic? Katie earned too many patches for me to just fold the tunic up and put it in a box somewhere. I decided to make it into a pillow. I ventured to the fabric store and the nice Bernina sewing machine lady introduced me to one of the BEST inventions ever: invisible thread! I came home and machine-sewed all of Katie’s patches to her tunic. Most of the patches had been ironed on previously, but that iron-on adhesive does NOT work well. The rest of the patches had just been stapled to her tunic because I didn’t have time to iron before the bridging ceremony. (Stapling is a GREAT way to go, by the way!) So I did it right this time and used the invisible thread to secure the patches for good. After that, I sewed the edges of the tunic together then stuffed it with cotton and finished the pillow. Katie squealed when she saw her new pillow. (I’m learning that little girls do a lot of squealing!)

I love that she has all those great Daisy memories in plain view, not stuffed into a box. Maybe one day, she’ll get to show her own daughter the pillow Mommy made and tell her daughter about all her fun Girl Scout days.