As I centered down in the quiet of the early morning, the message that was pressed upon me was this: There is a need today for gentleness, for quiet spirits, for drawing close and not allowing fear or selfishness to rule our hours. We must keep the light within visible, sharing it with others as kindness, concern, and caring. Always must we remember that we are love made visible and we are here to share that love and light. George Fox may have said, "Let Your Life Speak", but we must remember that our lives speak regardless of whether we let them or not. Let our lives speak love, light, and kindness today.
(I believe that this message was personal for me; I had awakened twice in the night, once with a sleepwalking child and once with a feverish, shivering, achy husband. I knew the day ahead of me would be filled with opportunities to either snap or be kind, and I wanted to choose kindness.)
Tuesday, December 9, 2014
Tuesday, November 11, 2014
Simplifying the Schedule
Our home learning year has been going really well in terms of rhythm and daily learning, but I found that the Charlotte Mason Method practice of breaking up the books through each term and the entire year wasn't working for us, so we aren't going to do it any longer.
We need things to be simple enough that we will keep up with them and not feel overwhelmed, but also interesting enough that we are not wasting our time. We also need the learning to feel natural, not forced. Breaking a book into 12, 24, or 36 weeks just isn't how we work around here; we tend to dive deeply into each book and read them in every spare moment until we've finished. Truthfully, in my own life I have found that any book that doesn't pull me in and make me want to keep reading is one that will probably never be finished.
I like block learning and find it simple to plan, even with all the daily subjects we are doing. We are able to devote 4 hours per week to our chosen block, plus extra time reading and watching film adaptions and documentaries.
(As a side note, Charlotte Mason Education skews toward British writers, especially for literature. I think we'll bring in more United States authors and world literature next year.)
We need things to be simple enough that we will keep up with them and not feel overwhelmed, but also interesting enough that we are not wasting our time. We also need the learning to feel natural, not forced. Breaking a book into 12, 24, or 36 weeks just isn't how we work around here; we tend to dive deeply into each book and read them in every spare moment until we've finished. Truthfully, in my own life I have found that any book that doesn't pull me in and make me want to keep reading is one that will probably never be finished.
I like block learning and find it simple to plan, even with all the daily subjects we are doing. We are able to devote 4 hours per week to our chosen block, plus extra time reading and watching film adaptions and documentaries.
(As a side note, Charlotte Mason Education skews toward British writers, especially for literature. I think we'll bring in more United States authors and world literature next year.)
2014 - 2015 Blocks
October: Emma, Pride and Prejudice
November: Little Dorrit, Hamlet
December: Miracle at Philadelphia
January: The Taming of the Shrew
February: Four Great Americans
March: Microbe Hunters
April: Character is Destiny
May: Arguing Slavery
June: The Count of Monte Cristo
Monday, October 27, 2014
An Update
We're more than a month in to this home learning year, and overall it's going well. I feel comfortable with the amount of time spent on the required subjects and I'm even starting to divide some of the subject work into mini-blocks.
For the first time, we have equal amounts of time spent on subjects (including music, but not PE nor biology) in the mornings and afternoons. We work from 10 -12 and again from 1 - 3, with me as a helper in the morning hours and a facilitator in the afternoon. It looks like this:
10 - 11 Geometry (I do mine earlier so that I can help)
11 - 12 30 Minutes Music / 30 Minutes Spanish
1 - 2 Guided Lesson Work
2 - 3 30 Minutes Music / 30 Minutes Writing
PE happens in the mornings for now, along with some afternoons, but when weekday practice begin we'll drop some of the mornings. I have no concerns regarding PE: the riders on the team who are high school are allowed to substitute regular PE with team practices so I know we are doing enough. More than enough actually as we'll add in another 3 hours of riding on top of practices each week. Right now, with practices not yet started, the boys are riding at least 10 hours per week.
Biology happens during guided lesson work and evening/weekend labs. It's another 8 - 10 hours weekly.
There are approximately 5 hours of Geometry weekly, along with 5 hours of music (plus J's weekly piano lesson). I don't count the time spent in the car listening to and discussing classical music, which is the only thing we listen to now while driving.
Spanish gets 2.5 hours weekly, plus informal practice.
We spend about 5 hours weekly on Language Arts, and about the same on Social Studies, but there is some overlap. We pull writing topics from Literature, Social Studies, and Biology.
On a day like today the boys will spend approximately 7 hours on required subjects, with a heavy emphasis on PE. Tomorrow they will spend 7.5 hours but it will be weighted toward biology as it is a lab day. Wednesday will be an easy day at 5.5 hours, Thursday 7.5 hours, and Friday 5.5 hours. I never imagined that we would spend so much time on focused learning, but that is because I keep hearing about how schools wasted so much learning time, etc. Now I'm not so sure I believe that; I find myself wishing we had more hours in the day to learn everything we want to learn.
About those mini blocks; Charlotte Mason education, at least as modeled by Ambleside Online, breaks books down into tiny chunks and the students are studying many of them at once. I'm finding that to be a good strategy for the books they don't love (although I don't think we need to be reading books they hate), but it falls apart when they do like a book. J read Pride and Prejudice in a little over a week once I assigned it even though I had planned it out over 10 weeks (T, on the other hand, is plodding through with it as assigned).
But what inspired me to experiment with mini blocks was Hamlet; the idea of stretching it out over the term (12 weeks) wasn't working for me. Instead we are giving it our full attention for the next two weeks, leaving all the other assigned reading for other mini blocks.
Blocks are what I loved about Enki and Waldorf education because I believe that we learn naturally by immersing ourselves in whatever we are interested in. I don't read the books I want to read a chapter a week - I dive in!
For the first time, we have equal amounts of time spent on subjects (including music, but not PE nor biology) in the mornings and afternoons. We work from 10 -12 and again from 1 - 3, with me as a helper in the morning hours and a facilitator in the afternoon. It looks like this:
10 - 11 Geometry (I do mine earlier so that I can help)
11 - 12 30 Minutes Music / 30 Minutes Spanish
1 - 2 Guided Lesson Work
2 - 3 30 Minutes Music / 30 Minutes Writing
PE happens in the mornings for now, along with some afternoons, but when weekday practice begin we'll drop some of the mornings. I have no concerns regarding PE: the riders on the team who are high school are allowed to substitute regular PE with team practices so I know we are doing enough. More than enough actually as we'll add in another 3 hours of riding on top of practices each week. Right now, with practices not yet started, the boys are riding at least 10 hours per week.
Biology happens during guided lesson work and evening/weekend labs. It's another 8 - 10 hours weekly.
There are approximately 5 hours of Geometry weekly, along with 5 hours of music (plus J's weekly piano lesson). I don't count the time spent in the car listening to and discussing classical music, which is the only thing we listen to now while driving.
Spanish gets 2.5 hours weekly, plus informal practice.
We spend about 5 hours weekly on Language Arts, and about the same on Social Studies, but there is some overlap. We pull writing topics from Literature, Social Studies, and Biology.
On a day like today the boys will spend approximately 7 hours on required subjects, with a heavy emphasis on PE. Tomorrow they will spend 7.5 hours but it will be weighted toward biology as it is a lab day. Wednesday will be an easy day at 5.5 hours, Thursday 7.5 hours, and Friday 5.5 hours. I never imagined that we would spend so much time on focused learning, but that is because I keep hearing about how schools wasted so much learning time, etc. Now I'm not so sure I believe that; I find myself wishing we had more hours in the day to learn everything we want to learn.
About those mini blocks; Charlotte Mason education, at least as modeled by Ambleside Online, breaks books down into tiny chunks and the students are studying many of them at once. I'm finding that to be a good strategy for the books they don't love (although I don't think we need to be reading books they hate), but it falls apart when they do like a book. J read Pride and Prejudice in a little over a week once I assigned it even though I had planned it out over 10 weeks (T, on the other hand, is plodding through with it as assigned).
But what inspired me to experiment with mini blocks was Hamlet; the idea of stretching it out over the term (12 weeks) wasn't working for me. Instead we are giving it our full attention for the next two weeks, leaving all the other assigned reading for other mini blocks.
Blocks are what I loved about Enki and Waldorf education because I believe that we learn naturally by immersing ourselves in whatever we are interested in. I don't read the books I want to read a chapter a week - I dive in!
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
What Happened on Day 2?
We don't have a history of fantastic second days. Based on that, this year's day 2 was okay. At least our issues weren't concerning attitude or motivation.
We started out stressed, as Papa and I were still trying to pull together our biology resources and figure out what the boys needed to do before the evening's laboratory. The boys were a little pokey eating their breakfast and getting their morning chores completed. We needed to take the dogs to their grooming appointment. All in all, the early morning was more rushed than I like.
Out academics went fine, however. The boys dug into their reading, and while they didn't enjoy Swift's Battle of the Books they made a good effort with it, along with How to Read a Book and the character descriptions from Hamlet. We did geometry, discussed our reading, and planned out the written narrations (at this age I am asking what they would like to narrate, and because they are new to it - but not really because Waldorf incorporates summarization - I help them work through it orally by asking questions). They also worked in a biology workbook (together since T still can't write). Workbooks aren't Waldorf or Charlotte Mason or even very holistic, but working with lab science is very different from the science we have done previously.
Things went downhill after that, however. After picking up the dogs I managed to turn my ankle and fall in the street. Ouch to my ankle, shoulder, hip, and wrist. It was a minor injury but caused problems just a little later, because while chopping potatoes for our main meal soup I was a little off-balance (favoring the ankle) and managed to cut myself with the sharp chef's knife.
I grabbed a cloth to apply pressure. I suppose it is true that injuries don't hurt as much at first because I then finished chopping potatoes with one hand and started the pressure cooker. The cut appeared to be deep, but I couldn't tell for certain because every time I took the cloth off it would bleed. I texted Papa and asked if he could come home to take a look at it for me. By then it was really hurting so I got in the car and went to get him.
His opinion was that the cut was deep and that we needed to go to urgent care. Ugh. I set the boys to doing their Spanish lessons and their written narrations and we headed out. (It is very nice to have teens who don't require a babysitter.)
Luckily the wait wasn't too bad; I was triaged quickly, seen by another nurse and the PA, and then had to wait for the PA to see attend to several patients before she could sew me up (most suture cases are not high priority and I understood this). I ended up with four stitches in the tip of my left index finger, along with an admonition not to bathe or shower for 24 hours and a request that I not do dishes or other wet cleaning for the duration of the stitches.
We had to pick up lunch so that Papa could get back to work, but before he left Papa helped me finish the soup that I had been working on when I cut myself. It made a nice supper and it was nice not to have to cook because my finger was in significant pain.
Papa and the boys did their biology lab after Papa got home, but before we ate our late supper. They learned about keeping scientific notebooks and also learned the basics of using a microscope. The notebook work is going to be difficult for them, at least at first, but we consider it an important part of doing scientific experiments accurately.
We started out stressed, as Papa and I were still trying to pull together our biology resources and figure out what the boys needed to do before the evening's laboratory. The boys were a little pokey eating their breakfast and getting their morning chores completed. We needed to take the dogs to their grooming appointment. All in all, the early morning was more rushed than I like.
Out academics went fine, however. The boys dug into their reading, and while they didn't enjoy Swift's Battle of the Books they made a good effort with it, along with How to Read a Book and the character descriptions from Hamlet. We did geometry, discussed our reading, and planned out the written narrations (at this age I am asking what they would like to narrate, and because they are new to it - but not really because Waldorf incorporates summarization - I help them work through it orally by asking questions). They also worked in a biology workbook (together since T still can't write). Workbooks aren't Waldorf or Charlotte Mason or even very holistic, but working with lab science is very different from the science we have done previously.
Things went downhill after that, however. After picking up the dogs I managed to turn my ankle and fall in the street. Ouch to my ankle, shoulder, hip, and wrist. It was a minor injury but caused problems just a little later, because while chopping potatoes for our main meal soup I was a little off-balance (favoring the ankle) and managed to cut myself with the sharp chef's knife.
I grabbed a cloth to apply pressure. I suppose it is true that injuries don't hurt as much at first because I then finished chopping potatoes with one hand and started the pressure cooker. The cut appeared to be deep, but I couldn't tell for certain because every time I took the cloth off it would bleed. I texted Papa and asked if he could come home to take a look at it for me. By then it was really hurting so I got in the car and went to get him.
His opinion was that the cut was deep and that we needed to go to urgent care. Ugh. I set the boys to doing their Spanish lessons and their written narrations and we headed out. (It is very nice to have teens who don't require a babysitter.)
Luckily the wait wasn't too bad; I was triaged quickly, seen by another nurse and the PA, and then had to wait for the PA to see attend to several patients before she could sew me up (most suture cases are not high priority and I understood this). I ended up with four stitches in the tip of my left index finger, along with an admonition not to bathe or shower for 24 hours and a request that I not do dishes or other wet cleaning for the duration of the stitches.
We had to pick up lunch so that Papa could get back to work, but before he left Papa helped me finish the soup that I had been working on when I cut myself. It made a nice supper and it was nice not to have to cook because my finger was in significant pain.
Papa and the boys did their biology lab after Papa got home, but before we ate our late supper. They learned about keeping scientific notebooks and also learned the basics of using a microscope. The notebook work is going to be difficult for them, at least at first, but we consider it an important part of doing scientific experiments accurately.
Monday, September 22, 2014
We Changed the Plan ...
... because this is our homeschool and we can do what we want, right?
I loved the idea of Big History, but I hated the implementation. The main site for educators is clearly designed for classroom. The Kahn Academy adaptation was a little better, but not much. The site (and series) for the general public barely skims the surface and does so in a frenetic manner.
I don't know what made me think that all of a sudden short little videos and classroom style activities would work for us. I suppose I wanted it to work because I loved the idea of telling the history of the universe. But I don't think a holistic home learner can easily get on board with quick and slick videos for learning. Where it the depth? Maybe it works with students who have never been taught to pay attention to anything for more than five minutes. The BHP seems to try to cram as much information as they can into the students as quickly as possible.
Deciding to toss the BHP led me to rethink what we were doing in every area, even though we had just started our home learning year. I had wanted to bring in literature that would tie to the BHP, but no longer needed to do that. Papa expressed a desire that the boys continue with classic literature and that we make an effort to weed out the less-than-stellar books that they love to read over and over again.
I didn't want to do Waldorf style main lessons; now that we are in the high school years I want less spoon feeding and more discussion. And then it hit me ... Charlotte Mason.
Charlotte Mason education has appealed to me all along, but in the younger years I preferred Enki and Waldorf. In the light of our changes, however, I decided to take a look at CM high school and liked what I was finding. It includes many subjects so that the student has the opportunity to be well-rounded. The studies are gentle, but in-depth.
We also decided, last minute, to do lab biology this year. We had thought to put it off one year, thinking that T might be fine with two years of lab science before he graduates, but moving it to this year keep alive the possibly that J can graduate early and still have three years of lab science.
(By the end of J's junior year he will have completed algebra, geometry, algebra 2, trigonometry and either precalculus or calculus, as well as biology, chemistry, and physics, and all his other subject learning will far surpass anything he would learn in high school so will we decide at that point if his maturity is such that he would benefit from moving on the college.)
I spent a week scrambling to create a lesson plan for the year. Since I have one child in grade 9 and one in grade 10 (although J child did grade 9 coursework last year) I leaned heavily on the Ambleside Online curriculum plan for completing grades 9 - 11 in two years. I took out the books that didn't fit in with our worldview (I see no reason to fear teaching secular history and science) and added in more US history, taking out the British history (it will get incorporated into world history). We ordered books (both paper and kindle) as well as a great microscope and a lab kit to go with the biology text we chose (CK12).
It is amazing to me how well CM education fits in with what I want for my boys in their high school years. I want them to read high quality books, both fiction and nonfiction, and to be able to discuss them orally and on paper. I want them to be well-grounded in Shakespeare just as much as I want them to have a firm grasp on mathematics and science. I want to continue with subjects such as nature study, music appreciation, and the like (those subjects that have been pushed out of public schools).
Today was our first day, and we traditionally have great first days, but today felt different; it was better than great. Compared to last year I felt more engaged as the boys' teacher. Our day looked like this:
Amazingly, that is 6 hours and 15 minutes of homeschool work, but it didn't feel like it. The boys will have between 5.25 - 6.25 hours of homeschool work on weekdays and an additional long PE session on Sundays. It seems like a lot, but this is high school. They work the first hour independently while I accomplish morning chores (baking bread, laundry, etc.) and then I spend the next two hours actively engaged with them. For the final morning hour I prepare our main meal while providing support as necessary.
I am taking the geometry with the boys as I feel that I didn't learn it as well as I could have when I was in high school. I am also doing their readings with them, excepting biology; Papa is teaching them biology and I only assign the reading and any narrations I want to pull from it. I plan to catch up to where they are in Spanish and continue forward with them; it should be easy as I did take three years of Spanish and did rather well in it. I could simply say that I have already learned these things and to step away, but I think that being engaged in what they are doing is the key to them enjoying it.
I'll check back in soon with an update on how it is going!
I loved the idea of Big History, but I hated the implementation. The main site for educators is clearly designed for classroom. The Kahn Academy adaptation was a little better, but not much. The site (and series) for the general public barely skims the surface and does so in a frenetic manner.
I don't know what made me think that all of a sudden short little videos and classroom style activities would work for us. I suppose I wanted it to work because I loved the idea of telling the history of the universe. But I don't think a holistic home learner can easily get on board with quick and slick videos for learning. Where it the depth? Maybe it works with students who have never been taught to pay attention to anything for more than five minutes. The BHP seems to try to cram as much information as they can into the students as quickly as possible.
Deciding to toss the BHP led me to rethink what we were doing in every area, even though we had just started our home learning year. I had wanted to bring in literature that would tie to the BHP, but no longer needed to do that. Papa expressed a desire that the boys continue with classic literature and that we make an effort to weed out the less-than-stellar books that they love to read over and over again.
I didn't want to do Waldorf style main lessons; now that we are in the high school years I want less spoon feeding and more discussion. And then it hit me ... Charlotte Mason.
Charlotte Mason education has appealed to me all along, but in the younger years I preferred Enki and Waldorf. In the light of our changes, however, I decided to take a look at CM high school and liked what I was finding. It includes many subjects so that the student has the opportunity to be well-rounded. The studies are gentle, but in-depth.
We also decided, last minute, to do lab biology this year. We had thought to put it off one year, thinking that T might be fine with two years of lab science before he graduates, but moving it to this year keep alive the possibly that J can graduate early and still have three years of lab science.
(By the end of J's junior year he will have completed algebra, geometry, algebra 2, trigonometry and either precalculus or calculus, as well as biology, chemistry, and physics, and all his other subject learning will far surpass anything he would learn in high school so will we decide at that point if his maturity is such that he would benefit from moving on the college.)
I spent a week scrambling to create a lesson plan for the year. Since I have one child in grade 9 and one in grade 10 (although J child did grade 9 coursework last year) I leaned heavily on the Ambleside Online curriculum plan for completing grades 9 - 11 in two years. I took out the books that didn't fit in with our worldview (I see no reason to fear teaching secular history and science) and added in more US history, taking out the British history (it will get incorporated into world history). We ordered books (both paper and kindle) as well as a great microscope and a lab kit to go with the biology text we chose (CK12).
It is amazing to me how well CM education fits in with what I want for my boys in their high school years. I want them to read high quality books, both fiction and nonfiction, and to be able to discuss them orally and on paper. I want them to be well-grounded in Shakespeare just as much as I want them to have a firm grasp on mathematics and science. I want to continue with subjects such as nature study, music appreciation, and the like (those subjects that have been pushed out of public schools).
Today was our first day, and we traditionally have great first days, but today felt different; it was better than great. Compared to last year I felt more engaged as the boys' teacher. Our day looked like this:
- Wake up, care for dogs, eat breakfast, do chores.
- Have second breakfast (my boys always have their breakfast in two parts, a fruit smoothie early and then a whole grain based food an hour or two later) and discuss together how our day will look.
- First hour: assigned reading in biology, geography, and government
- Second hour: geometry. We are also supposed to do a short penmanship/copywork lesson during this time, but with a child in a cast it will be postponed for another month.
- Third hour: This was supposed to be our time for current events, map work, and time line work; however, I had forgotten about an orthodontist appointment so we'll get it started next week. I didn't have a newspaper or map at hand anyway.
- Fourth Hour: Spanish and written narrations (switching off between rooms/computers)
- Lunch
- Music practice for 45 minutes
- Free time
- PE: weekly recovery road ride for 90 minutes
- Late dinner
- Reading and bedtime
Amazingly, that is 6 hours and 15 minutes of homeschool work, but it didn't feel like it. The boys will have between 5.25 - 6.25 hours of homeschool work on weekdays and an additional long PE session on Sundays. It seems like a lot, but this is high school. They work the first hour independently while I accomplish morning chores (baking bread, laundry, etc.) and then I spend the next two hours actively engaged with them. For the final morning hour I prepare our main meal while providing support as necessary.
I am taking the geometry with the boys as I feel that I didn't learn it as well as I could have when I was in high school. I am also doing their readings with them, excepting biology; Papa is teaching them biology and I only assign the reading and any narrations I want to pull from it. I plan to catch up to where they are in Spanish and continue forward with them; it should be easy as I did take three years of Spanish and did rather well in it. I could simply say that I have already learned these things and to step away, but I think that being engaged in what they are doing is the key to them enjoying it.
I'll check back in soon with an update on how it is going!
Thursday, September 11, 2014
Project #2: Hooked On Napkins
My completed napkin
The itty bitty ribbon
I'm just going to say it: I couldn't figure out how to miter the corners following ELB's diagrams. Theoretically it made sense, but I couldn't do it in practice. I looked up instructions on the web and tried and failed again, and then I found these instructions at Skip to My Lou and finally I was able to miter the blasted corners. This is what I mean about feeling I have gone backwards, however, because I have mitered corners in the past and yet I felt like this was the first time.
(Papa suggested that sewing when one has been ill all day and is running a temperature might not be the most prudent thing to do.)
I used my 1/4" foot and piecing program to hem the napkin, and then my blind hem foot with the needle in the far left position to edge stitch it. I oopsed on the hemming so my bobbin thread ended up on top of my fabric, but I didn't want to tear it out and start over.
What did I learn? That I don't want to make napkins with this method, double folding and ironing all the hems. I am motivated to give my rolled hem foot another try. I also need to pay attention to what thread I have in the top and the bobbin; if I had done that I wouldn't have made the mistake with the hem thread. I do find that I like the edge stitching on the napkin so I would do that again.
Wednesday, September 10, 2014
Project #1: Fruit Tea Towel
I am making every project from the book 1 --> 2 --> 3 Sew, and first up is a set of little kitchen towels that are supposed to be stamped with a piece of cut fruit. While I appreciate the suggestion to gussy up a plain towel, I decided that I have had enough stamping experience in my life and that I do not want a towel stamped with fruit in my kitchen.
Plus, I am trying to sew frugally, and the only plain white fabric I have that would work for this project is a plain muslin, and I think it is a bit thin for a towel. I actually stood in front of my fabric for some time trying to choose a fabric that was the appropriate weight and size, that I didn't really care about using (meaning I haven't earmarked it for another project), and that I liked enough to actually use the towels. Since the project calls for 1 yard of fabric I cut a two yard piece in half and went forward from there.
(What is it about a project that makes us want to run to the fabric store and buy fabric for a specific project rather than using our stash? Or rather, what is it that makes us buy fabrics for our stash if we aren't going to want to use them later?)
I did see that without some sort of embellishment these towels would likely look like oddly shaped napkins; luckily, Ellen Luckett Baker (from here on out referred to as ELB) made an allotment for people such as me, as evidenced below.
See where ELB says "Forgo the fruit stamps and instead use trim ..."?
I pulled out my trim box and chose some rickrack. I had hoped to used one of the packages of vintage rickrack I had purchased for a song at a thrift store, but those were all too small so I had to go with a vintage rickrack that I purchased years ago from April at April 1930s. It's time to stop hoarding, right? (Unfortunately it looks like April no longer sells rickrack, although she states that you can email her to see what she has left.)
Vintage rickrack from my stash
Then I thought of another hiccup: I have a towel with rickrack on it and the trim curls after washing. I decided that I needed to sew the rickrack down firmly, so I went searching for a decorative stitch and fiddled with the spacing to get it to work with my rickrack. When I actually sewed the rickrack on (after using glue stick to baste it) the stitches didn't line as well as they had with my sample, but I decided to Let It Go*.)
I sewed up the sides, top, and bottom as instructed (I think I did, because I read the directions a couple of days ago) except I decided to use a zigzag stitch, and while it is a cute towel, it is small. I guess I should have gotten that from tea towel, eh? I decided not to move forward with making a set of them; I will cut the other three pieces of fabric into squares and move on to the napkin project.
The decorative stitching on the rickrack
The completed towel
Did I learn anything? Yes! I learned that it is really easy to make my own kitchen towels and that the corners don't have to be mitered to look nice. I learned that sewing heavy cotton rickrack to lightweight quilting cotton can result in some puckering. I learned that this pattern results in towels that are smaller than I like (so I will note that in the book, suggesting that I start with 1.75 yards of fabric cut into rectangles 22 x 31"). I also learned that I probably won't use rickrack as an embellishment again; my next try will involve a solid cotton or linen and I will use several rows of decorative stitches as the embellishment.
* I read that you have to be bad at something before you can be good at something. I've gotten really hung up with my sewing because I find myself not wanting to sew if I can't sew well, so my new mantra is Let It Go ... let go of the desire for perfection, let go of the fear of doing it wrong, let go of the fear that something will turn our ugly. Let It Go reminds me to sew for the process, not the product.
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