Home Schooling

Stories about home schooling

This Little Guy

| Cindy Anderson

This little guy lives in the bottom of my dish towel drawer.  He’s stitched to a homemade, linen bag that my oldest daughter Jenny gave me a long time ago. The bag is meant to hold a loaf of bread.

There was an era when Jenny had the time to make bread. Those days are few and far between. She is wrapped up in the task of home-schooling her three children. Anything she touches, whether it be bread-making, home-schooling as well as her talent for sewing is done with excellence. I’m very proud of what she has accomplished and the wonderful person that she is.

While putting away a stack of clean dish towels recently I saw this little guy looking up at me and it spurred me on to jokingly send her a text message. This is what I said:

a-little-bird

This little guy lives in my dish towel drawer. Every time I pull open that drawer I see him. Perhaps sometime he will once again wrap himself around a warm loaf of homemade bread. Hint, Hint!

She replied:

LOL, I’ll keep that in mind.

You know, it never hurts to ask! The worst she could say is “No.” On the other hand, a maybe is way better that no. I’ll keep hoping she can sneak in the time to make a fresh, steaming, hot loaf of yummy homemade bread. Until then, every time I open that drawer and see the little orange birdie he will help to keep the dream alive.

For now….

Cindy Anderson of In A Stitch Quilting

Tea and Art: Project Complete

| Cindy Anderson

Saw Tooth Star –

I love spending time with my grandchildren. Way back on September 21, 2015 I posted a story about a project we participated in. During our special day the children finished making three saw tooth star blocks.

Left unfinished were the bindings. Binding is one of my daughter’s least favorite things to do so I volunteered to add them.

Procrastination? –

Obviously quite a bit of time has passed since my original post. If I had simply set this project aside because of a bad case of procrastination I would be embarassed to even bring you up-to-date. But an endless stream of life experiences, both good and bad, left this tiny project languishing on my shelf. I’m so glad to be able to get back to finishing them up.

Binding –

To make binding these squares a little easier my daughter had cut, stitched, pressed and rolled together a large roll of binding. Using that neatly prepared resource it was easy to machine stitch the binding to the front side of each block. I then flipped the blocks over to reveal the back side, folded the binding to the back, pressed them in place and secured it with my clips.  With needle and thread I hand stitched the edge of the binding down.

Drum roll please…….

I’m happy to say they are finally finished. Here they are!

Cindy Anderson at In A Stitch Quilting

 

Tea and Art: Saw Tooth Star

| Cindy Anderson

Fun With My Grandchildren

Tea & Art is an activity I participate in with my oldest daughter and her three children. During the school year we make an attempt to get together on as many Tuesdays as possible. Sometimes the event is carried through into the summer.

Let’s Do It At My House!

I volunteered to host this session of Tea & Fart at my home. On the menu was of course a variety of teas, one to suit everyone’s taste buds, plus a yummy dessert prepared by my daughter.

IMG_9036_newOn the activity agenda was the reading of poetry and a previously chosen project. The item we would be making was a a quilt square. The theme for the quilt square was the Civil War. My daughter home schools her kiddos. Part of the curriculum this year is the study of the Civil War. Used as the resource material is the book The Civil War for Kids.

IMG_9040_newWhich Pattern?

To commemorate their studies my daughter picked the Sawtooth Star, also known as North Star block. The pattern and instructions were found at sewmamasew.com. I donated the fabric from my stash. My daughter prepared, cut and marked the fabric pieces beforehand. The Sawtooth Star is a fairly simple block to make, especially with adult supervision.

Help From the Kids

Mr. J, my oldest grandchild, did most of his own machine stitching. This wasn’t his first exposure to operating a sewing machine so he did quite well.

IMG_9051Miss L, my second grandchild had never operated a sewing machine before. Since it was her first time it was very slow going. As you can see from the photo she concentrated very hard on stitching a straight line. With my assistance and a bit of tearing out of stitches the two of us managed to complete her block.

My third grandchild, Miss M, is two years younger than her sister. Her age and her size make it somewhat difficult for her to run the machine by herself. However, she worked diligently at learning the art of guiding fabric, operating the foot pedal and keeping her fingers and hands out of the needles path. In spite of her age and lack of experience she still managed to sew at least one row of stitches.

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Time to Press

You can’t learn how to sew without learning how to press seams. All three of my grandkids took their turn at that as well. Only one of them had first-hand experience with the heat of an iron on skin.

Two Hours Later

After about two hours we were successful at assembling all three quilt blocks. All we have left to do now is the quilting and binding. Those activities were postponed until a later date. Below are photos of all three blocks.

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As further progress occurs I will share an update.

Cindy Anderson