Apron #1

We just finished a study in the book of Psalms.  Some dear friends helped write the lessons and delivered lectures over the various passages.  I made some things for some of the ladies who helped.  I had some fabric with verses from the Psalms printed on it.

Here is the first one (in colors that match her kitchen, but not my kitchen, in the photo!!)

"Be still and know that I am God," it says.
I am thinking the apron will help my dear friend remember what she taught. . .
and remember to Be still and Know.
CathyH

Box #2 - Some More

I showed some of the vintage un-finished projects in Box #2 in this blogpost.

There were a few items that you might NOT classify as vintage.

But there is a word that describes these creations:

Kitsch.  

Dictionary definition of Kitsch:  "something of tawdry design, appearance, or content created to appeal to popular or undiscriminating taste"

Wikipedia adds: "The concept is associated with the deliberate use of elements that may be thought of as cultural icons.  Kitsch also refers to the types of art that are aesthetically deficient (whether or not being sentimental, glamorous, theatrical, or creative) and that make creative gestures which merely imitate the superficial appearances of art through repeated conventions and formulae."
It appears that this word has also taken a more negative connotation. 


I speak of a historical definition of this word.  And I present two pieces that demonstrate this word:

This is a pillow cover - printed onto muslin with embroidery features.  
"Content created to appeal to popular or undiscriminating taste"
as defined above.

This is also worked onto muslin.  With yarn.

You can see the embroidery work on the hat

And here are the eyes.... KITSCH, for sure.

You can see the hard work that went into attaching this pink yarn to the muslin.  

I actually really like the flowers!

And last, but not least today, A lovely lady.

The purpose of this object?  I am not sure.  But someone took the time to make this by hand.

And she ended up in my box.  

I'll hang on to all three of these pieces for a little while!

CathyH

UFO #4 April - Finished!

For my April UFO I set the goal of machine quilting a table runner my Mom had created.  It appears that she was practicing a bunch of piecing techniques.  And it has some applique on it.  I think this is the last applique that my Mom did.  It's not as good as her earlier work, but I want to preserve what she was able to do even near the end.



My goal with this piece was to practice machine quilting - and to learn Free Motion quilting on my machine.  I searched and searched for a darning/free motion foot for my Singer.  And found one at our local sewing machine store.

And then I just tried it!  I worked the free motion quilting on the paisley print- so I could not really get very good pictures of the stitching from the right side of the quilt.  So the pictures are of the back side of the piece. (And even that is hard to see because I used the same color thread as the backing!)

I was extremely pleased with what I was able to do.

 I also did some shadow-quilting with my walking foot around the applique.
My daughter liked this.

Here is a close-up.
I hope to keep up the free motion quilting - and get better at it.

The table topper has found its home on our dining room table for now.

Check out the other April UFO projects at Patchwork Times.

Now.  On to the May UFO!!
CathyH

Feet (This is Math?)

Today I want you to explore feet.  The unit-of-measurement kind of feet.  And just to teach a little humor in our language, I'm asking the kids to measure their own feet.

Find a ruler that measures one foot. Find 3 things that are the same length as the ruler.  Find 3 things that are shorter and 3 things that are longer than the ruler.	Does anyone in your family have feet that are a foot long?	How tall is the front door in your house?  How wide is it?  Is it the same size as other doors in your house?
How tall are the ceilings in your house?	How many inches in a foot?  How many feet in a yard?  How many inches in a yard?	How tall is each person in your house?  Give measurement in feet plus inches.
Have a hopping competition.  Hop on one foot.  How many feet can you hop?	Play a throwing game (ideas below).  Guess how far you threw the object, then measure it to see how good you are at guessing feet.	Find out how many feet are in a mile.  Memorize this number.

 INDICATING UNITS: When you have the students measure things - teach them how to indicate the unit of measurement.  For the unit FEET they can write "feet" or "foot" (if there is only one of them) or they can abbreviate with "ft."  Additionally there is the little apostrophe that can actually indicate the unit FEET . . . "My ceilings are 8' tall".  You will probably need to talk about inches, also.  They can write "inches" or "in" or use the double apostrophe (like this: 8" to mean 8 inches).  The apostrophe indication of feet and inches works very well when you have to report in feet AND inches (like in heights of people)  5'4" is 5 feet, 4 inches.

For a THROWING GAME, you might want to NOT use a ball - as it will roll away before you can measure the initial distance it was thrown.  Here are some ideas of objects to throw:
toss pennies
wad up paper
bean bags
roll toy cars until they stop
spit watermelon seeds

FEET PER MILE: Most of my children run long distance races.  They keep their mind busy converting the kilometers to meters, then to quarter miles and to miles.  And sometimes you just need to know how many feet in a mile.  If your students memorize 5,280 feet per mile they may win trivia games and be at an advantage in their physics class years from now. And run faster and jump higher...

Happy Feet!!

Cathy H

Mail Call

I got a package in the mail today!

There was a blog hop in February - where you hop from one blog to another.  And prizes!  I won a prize! See this post from Quilt Jane.  Click on her Home button, also, to see her wonderful creativity.

I won $25 from Green Fairy Quilts.
I chose 3 charm packs that I had to pre-order because they were not in stores yet.  They were NEW fabrics!!  I have lots of old fabric.  But now I have some new fabric, too!

(Make new friends,

But keep the old:

One is silver and

The other is gold!)

I will use these in something this summer.
Or maybe I will keep them until they are old friends.
CathyH

Number Our Days (This is Math?)

When our children are young babies we give their age in DAYS. Eventually we speak of how many MONTHS old - and then we start to round to the nearest YEAR or half a year.

When telling how old a child is, the real problem is - IT CHANGES EVERY DAY!!

Seems like a good opportunity to incorporate MATH.

This week's "This is Math?" helps you focus on some facts that your children just ought to know.  Most kids know their own birthdate.  Teach them to love their siblings by knowing those birth dates, also.  (Teach them the birthdays of Mom and Dad when they are young and they will be able to remember your birthday when they go away to college or have families of their own!)

I believe you should be able to copy this Tic-Tac-Toe board and paste it to a word processing document. Each student should pick THREE (or even more!) squares and then complete each task in each of those squares.  They might want to try make a tic-tac-toe.

How many days in a week?  What are their names?  Can you say them BACKWARDS?	How many month in the year?  What are their names?  Each month is given a number in the order they occur in the year.  Learn these.	How many days in a year?
How many days in each month?  (Learn the little poem)	How many weeks in a year?  How many weeks before June?  How many weeks before Thanksgiving?  Christmas?	How many years old are you?  How many weeks old are you?  What about your siblings?
What is your birthdate?  How many days until your birthday? Learn to tell your birthday using numbers.	Learn the birthdates of your family members. Learn, also, that DOB means "Date of Birth".	How many days old are you?  Your siblings?

You could expand your exploration into other languages - learning the days of the weeks and the names of the months in another language.  You could also learn to count up to 31 in another language.

With the months of the year you can play a game - even driving down the road.  You name a month, the kids have to figure out what NUMBER is associated with that month.  Or, you give a number between 1 and 12 and they name the month.  Make it a contest if it would be fair, or take turns, asking easier questions of the younger children.

You remember the poem about the number of days in each month?   You can google this - and you might also find a little devise using your knuckles to help know how many days in a given month.

Number your days, but count your blessings!
CathyH

Psalm 90:12 says "Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom."

Box #2

Last November I opened a box in my closet and was thrilled to find old ties in the box. (see this link)  I got carried away with sewing on those items (imagine THAT!) instead of blogging about my intentions.

But I DO have a number of really interesting boxes in my sewing room.  I opened a few last weekend, and want to share one with you.  It will probably take a few blog-posts to cover all the items!

It is a box full of OLD items (mostly unfinished) that have been given to me.  They found a home in my room - and someday will turn into a useful item.  Some of the items are OLD . . maybe you would even say VINTAGE.

This is an apron printed onto thin, handkerchief-type blue fabric.  It is obviously ready to be embroidered - and would be lovely.  My question: should I preserve this in its original state or complete it as was intended?

Here is another - a full set of yellow 'scarves' to go on top of a buffet and a table-runner, I think.  They seem to be made of a lovely golden linen.

To the right of each of the large pieces is a close-up of the label inked onto the fabric.

Again, I wonder if I should preserve these in their original state or complete them.

One more item in this state:

 

Apparently this is a 'boudoir pillow'.  It is the same kind of 'handkerchief' type fabric as the blue apron above.







I'm hoping that some of you out in blog-land will have an informed opinion - or even expert advice about what I should do with these items.

Leave a comment so I can know whether to preserve them as-is or (eventually) add the embroidery and finish them up.

Come back in the next day or so - and I'll show you another pillow that makes me laugh and laugh.  I have NO IDEA where I got this!  Here is a little teaser picture:

 

CathyH