Making a Sit-Upon is a Girl Scout tradition! A sit-upon is a homemade padded seat cushion usually used for camping to give you a dry place to sit around a campfire or at a troop meeting.
There are many ways to make a situpon, also known as a sit-up-on. Here’s how our Brownie Troop girls made theirs.
We used a thick vinyl cloth-backed tablecloths in the largest standard rectangular size 54″ x 90″. These cost about $3.00 each at a dollar store and made 9 sit-upons per tablecloth. You can also use vinyl sold by the yard that’s not too expensive.
Materials:
- vinyl cloth (tablecloth or by-the-yard)
- yarn (at least 4 feet per situpon)
- tape (to put around end of yarn to make it easy to “sew”
- Hand held hole punch
- scissors
- stuffing — either newspaper, or old carpet padding, or other insulative material.
Here’s how to do it:
Pre-cut the tablecloth into nine sections according to the picture at right. I used pinking shears (the zig-zag scissors). Each sit-upon section will be 15″ x 30″.
Fold each section in half so that you have a 15″ x 15″ situpon. Lay folded newspapers inside, or use squares of donated carpet padding that you can easily pre-cut to 13″x13″ sections so it will fit into the cloth-backed tablecloth.
Use a hole punch to punch holes about every inch all the way around about a half inch from the edge of your situpon. Depending on the age and abilities of the girls, you can have them punch the holes, or you can help them. (For small Brownies, we pre-punched the holes, but for older girls, we had them do it. The girls did all the sewing and assembling.
Use yarn or string to sew around the three sides. Girls can use an overlay stitch or a straight stitch if they prefer. You may need to put a piece of tape on the end of your string to make it easier to insert through the holes. Brownies should be able to sew around and tie it off by themselves. Have each girl write her name on her sit-upon using a permanent marker, or decorate it with paint pens.
Now you’re ready to use it! Before you leave the meeting, have everyone sit in a circle with their new situpons. Sing a song, or pass a friendship squeeze.
Want more Girl Scout tips? See how to make a bridge for a Bridging Ceremony.
