God's Girls Club: Inner Beauty

A big welcome to all the mothers of young girls! Glad you are joining us for another meeting of our Summertime God's Girls Club, a mother/daughter group that seeks to find joy in femininity and impart a love of homemaking to the next generation of Proverbs 31 girls.

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Throughout the summer, we have been working our way through Lady in Waiting for Little Girls: Strengthening the Heart of Your Princess by Jackie and Dede Kendall.

Table Manners/Hospitality Skills: 

• Review last week's skills. 
• Learn to set/practice a basic table setting. 
• When spooning a portion of butter, jam, or spread to be used on bread/toast, take your portion and place on your plate. DO NOT use the communal knife or spoon to spread the jam onto your piece of bread. 
• With your own knife, spread only enough jam/jelly onto your bread for one bite. Once you take your bite, spread another bite's worth onto your bread. 
• If a dish/food item is out of your reach, ask the person who is closest to the item to pass it to you. He/she should then pass it to the person next to him/her until it finally reaches you. 

Tea Party Snack: Toasted English Muffins and an assortment of jams and jellies (Admittedly, this is an odd "snack" for a tea party, but I wanted to practice serving "spreads" from a communal bowl.)

Character Quality: 

Inner Beauty/Virtue

We began our lesson portion of the evening by putting on some shiny lip gloss. The girls learned that lips that look pretty on the outside but are spouting unkind words, lies, or gossip are NOT pretty. Similarly, one of God's Girls can wear the prettiest dress, have the fanciest shoes, and a fashionable hairstyle but appear very ugly. According to 1 Peter 3:3, true beauty comes from a gentle and quiet spirit.

Biblical Example:  Esther (Esther 2:12-17)

Although there was an entire harem of beautiful girls at the king's disposal, Esther stood apart and won her place as Queen. What set her apart? Was it her outward beauty? Probably not, as there were dozens of beauties to choose from. Just as her personality had "won the favor of everyone who saw her", it also won over the favor of the king. Esther was deemed more beautiful because she was beautiful on the inside AND outside.

Handcraft:  

a simple, one-handle bookbag, part 2

At our last meeting, the girls cut the pattern and fabric of a simple book bag. At this week's meeting, we focused on sewing the bag portion together.

To make the bag portion of the book bag: 

Remove the pins from the pattern/fabric and set the pattern aside.

Sew a 1/4 inch "stay stitch" around the entire piece of fabric. (Since we are focusing on the PROCESS of sewing and not the PRODUCT, we will not be lining this bag. We sewed a "stay stitch" around the entire fabric to help prevent fraying.)

Fold the bag fabric in half with right sides together. Pin the long sides in place and sew together with a 1/4 inch seam allowance. (Make sure to sew on the "inside" of the stay stitch otherwise you will be able to see the stay stitch on the outside of the bag.)

Measure 1/4 inch down from the top of the bag opening. Fold and press. Measure an additional 1 1/2 inches. Fold and press. This will create a "finished" looking opening.

Pin the folded portion in place.

With the foot directly against the inside fold, sew the "finished" opening.

Invert the fabric and press flat.

Finish the bag portion by sewing a 1/4 inch top stitch all the way around the opening. 

Please join us next time for our FINAL God's Girls Club meeting. We will be focusing on DEVOTION and sewing and attaching the handle of our bags.

If you missed any of our fun...

God's Girls Club: Obedience
God's Girls Club: Service
God's Girls Club: Faith
God's Girls Club: Inner Beauty
God's Girls Club: Devotion