The BHS Beta Club is gearing up to go to convention this week and, WOW, have we been busy! First there's the candidate skit: 58 seconds of screaming props, backdrops and costumes. Then there are the academic competitions: a simple job of convincing students to participate, and creating a test schedule. and telling each kiddo when and where to be, and making sure that they actually GO to the competition. Let's not forget the arts and crafts competition: wood working, painting, pencils, photography, wreath, banner, needle crafts, and many, many more. 
Our kids finally decided that they would make a banner. Since one of the sponsors is the art teacher, she took on this creative endeavor. This means she pushed the kids to develop an idea for the theme (Beta Above and Beyond). Next, we gathered the materials and tweaked our idea a bit more. The kids thought about printing pictures of themselves to add to the banner. Paper wouldn't work, though since the banner is made of fabric, so then came printing pictures on fabric. That actually did work!
So after a test of the fabric, the kids had to come up with a plan for the photos. They used their phones to take pictures of Betas posing to create a particular scene. One standing on another, for example. Since we wouldn't allow them to actually climb or stand on each other, they had to work that out. And they made it work seamlessly!
It would be difficult to tell that no two students are in the same photo, but that is the case. The photo of the girl standing on the boy in this photo was taken at a different time than his. The trick was to have him stand with his hands in just the right place to hold her feet. Then she had to stand with her feet just far enough apart. There was none of this business of printing 3 or 4 copies of the pictures. That gets expensive. So the kids manipulated the photos on their phones or on the computer. Once the photos were printed on fabric, we began playing with where and how to manuver them on the banner.
Interestingly, one of the girls immediately had the idea of taking burst shots. That was a bit of a life-saver for the girl in a hand-stand.
And this one? She is not actually hanging from the monkey bars...we don't have any of those at the high school. How ingenious did they get by lying her on a table with her feet dangling, posing her just right (including her hair) and then standing over her on a ladder to get a down shot? I was impressed! But what impressed me the most was the way that they brainstormed ideas, adding to the available information, and collaborating like a team. Some of the kids didn't want to be in the pictures, but when pressed to help out, they agreed, especially when they could turn away from the camera. There were no bad ideas, though there were a few that didn't work out as planned.
Now that the banner top is complete, I've shown them how to make a turned closure, and we have plans for a few of the kids to come over and use the long-arm. I would like to have the quilt loaded on the machine to save time because I expect it will take a while to quilt this 24 X 36 banner. The plan is to quilt the background heavily and outline around the people, stars, and earth allowing them to pop forward.
It's been fun sharing a small bit of quilting and fiber arts with the kids. A couple of the kids were all in with the photography. One of the girls really jumped into the quilting process and enjoyed manipulating the fabrics. I think that she may be interested in making her own quilt later and plan to encourage her. She could use the machines at school, and I'll help her to get it quilted...if we get that far. Wouldn't that have been worth all the late afternoons?
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