Playing catch up

During the summer, I found a couple of challenges on Pinterest that I thought would be fun for me and Kelsey to work on together.

Since there are more than 30 days during summer, I figured we would have no problem finishing these up!

Well, today is the 4th of October and we just finished day 19 of the challenges. Summer ended up being busier than either one of us expected, but we are determined to get working on finishing up the challenges. Here is my picture from yesterday:

My shoes - it has been over 95 degrees here everyday since last Friday, summer just doesn't seem to want to leave.

This is not my doodle, this is my husband's doodle from a card he made for me. My drawings/doodles could and never will look this good!

This is my doodle, I was never really a doodler. My nose was always in a book. My kids are better doodlers than I am which means I probably don't even have a doodling gene in my body. I will stick to reading, baking, photography, sewing, etc.

What kind of challenges have you done with your kids?

Home Ec Day #2

Today was another day of no book work. We had a little visitor...
 
While our little visitor was napping this morning, I thought I would see how far I could get on a Pinterest sewing project which is a gift for an upcoming bridal shower. I am always on the look out for new apron patterns and this one looked cute and quick to put together.
 
 

Since I had already cut all the pieces out yesterday, I was able to sew the apron together during our little visitor's morning nap! Yay! The pattern does not mention ironing over and sewing up the side seams for the top and bottom piece, so if you do make this pattern, be sure to remember to inclued those steps.

Another thing which I added was a backing piece for the waistband. Without the backing piece, the wrong side of the apron would look like this...

Yuck! Really looks unfinished, so I cut another waistband piece of the floral material, folded over and ironed a 5/8 inch seam allowance on all sides, then pinned and sewed this piece onto the existing waistband. This is a nice way to hide all those seam allowances without doing a zig-zag stitch or using a serger.

One other change I made was the neck tie strings. I cut these at 2 1/4 inches long instead of the 4 1/2 inches long. I just like the look of a smaller width neck tie.

Ta-da! One finished apron! 

Home Ec Day

One of the nice things about homeschooling is the opportunity we have to set aside the books every now and then and work on some fun projects!

On Saturday, Kelsey spent many hours working on her quilt project. She said something to the effect of, "I like working on projects on Saturdays because I have more time to work on them. During the week, I don't have enough time to work on projects." So I told her that we can always put the books away during the week and work on special projects.

This morning Kelsey decided that today would be the day to finish up her quilt! All that was left to do was attach the binding. After I rotary cut all the strips for her, she did all the sewing for the binding. Then we pinned the binding to the quilt, so she could start sewing that on. Once the binding was sewn on to the front of the quilt, then I spent time pinning the binding so she could 'stitch in the ditch'. I prefer to hand stitch the binding to the back of the quilt, but Kelsey didn't want to spend that much time finishing up this project.

Once she was done with her sewing, a little repair needed to be done. While I did a little repairing for her, Kelsey made dinner for us! Pioneer Woman's Pasta with Pesto Cream Sauce!

 Here is the finished quilt!
 
And here is the finished pasta dish!
 
She even helped out with some of the laundry today too! I believe I will give her an 'A' for the day!
 


Large = small, but small = large?

So, our most recent photography assignement was on aperture. You know that one that really confuses everyone. What we learned the night of our lesson is that photography light is measured in steps. There is actually some geometry involved in the calculation of the f-stops, but I certainly don't want to lose anybody with the explanation!

Aperture is a really cool setting on your camera once you realize what you can do with it. Aperture has to do with how wide the lens is open. With a wide open lens (or large aperture which is a small f-stop number), you can decrease the depth of field which gives you that blurred background which is amazing with portrait photography. With a small lens opening (or small aperture which is a large f-stop number), you can increase the depth of field which works well for landscape photography.

Here are a couple of examples from my 'homework':

Picture #1: this picture was shot at a shutter speed of 1/640s, ISO at 1600 and aperture at f/18. I used a high ISO number because I was under a roof and didn't want the flash to come on. This allowed enough light to come into the lens even though the aperture was small. Notice how clear the background is in this picture.

Picture #2: this picture was shot at a shutter speed of 1/500s, ISO at 100, but with an aperture of f/4.5. Notice the difference between this picture and picture #1?

Picture #3: this picture was shot at a shutter speed of 1/250s, ISO at 100, and aperture of f/4.5. This picture is very similar in its effect as picture #2. Notice the settings of picture #2 and this one.

Picture #4: this picture was shot at a shutter speed of 1/8s, ISO at 100, and aperture of f/22. Notice the difference?

The great thing about digital is the ability to play around with settings, take as many pictures as you want, and not having to pay for film processing! Back when I was using film, I would never have taken as many pictures as I do today.

Are you ready to move your camera off of auto and give manual a try? Remember that large aperture = small number = decreases depth of field. Then on the other end, small aperture = large number = increases depth of field.

Let me know if you post pictures on your blog giving this a try! Happy picture taking!

King Tut

As Kelsey and I were walking up to the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum today, I kept thinking about Steve Martin singing his King Tut song. And of course there is also, Walk Like an Egyptian by the Bangles. Anyway... :o)

We are using Mystery of History I for our history curriculum this year. I went through this book years ago with both kids. Kelsey was pretty little then, so it was time to do a second run through with her. A couple of weeks ago, we completed Lesson 11 and the recommended activity is to visit an Egyptian display in your area. So today was field trip day to the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum. Apparently, it houses the largest display of Egyptian artifacts in the western part of North America. Pretty impressive!

Here are some pictures of our day:

 Outside the museum, we found this really strange looking statue
 
 Replica of King Tut's coffin
 
 On our way down into the tomb...
 
 ...inside the tomb, kind of felt like we were on the set of Night at the Museum!
 
 Walking like an Egyptian!
 
A really old cartouche, and the card actually still has B.C. on it, instead of B.C.E.
 
 Replica of the Rosetta Stone
 
 Replica of the stone with Hammurabi's code
 
 Hanging Gardens of Babylon
 
Nefertiti
 
I am so glad we took the time to go out to this museum today! We were able to see a lot of things that we will be covering in upcoming lessons. If you are nearby the San Jose, California area, you should really make the time to visit this museum! In fact, I will add it to my Great Field Trips page. Have you had a chance to visit my Great Field Trips page? I am going to be adding to this list, so keep checking back to see where we have gone for some field trips over the years.
 
Do you have some favorite field trip destinations?