A Burial

... or rather, a recycling.  The sad truth is that Immortal Poems of the English Language, edited by Oscar Williams, in a cheap paperback edition probably dating from the 1950's when my late mother bought her brother's old textbooks in a bulk lot, was never holding up very well when I knew and loved it back in the 1980's.  I was a romantic teenager then, and I picked it up out of the jumble of other anthologies and history books in the spare room.  "I like poetry... I can even write poetry!"  (I wrote very bad poetry).  So it sat beside my bed for about a year, and every night I would read a few pages.  It changed my life.

It started with the medieval songs and ballads, many of them anonymous, most of them gory and depressing, with the quintessentially British love of the macabre.  Just ask Lord Randal or Tom O'Bedlam.  It seemed to me, as I was working my way through the archaic words, that the medieval world was much more rich and satisfying, albeit dangerous, than the modern one.  Every so often there would be a poem where some even more archaic words were mixed with the medieval ones -- stepping stones from ancient times.  I think this must have been the first time I ever consciously wanted to study Latin, although I'd certainly read Myths of Greece and Rome and loved the stories: but I hadn't yet been captivated by the language itself.

Even the moderns, though I preferred the older writers and could never memorize poetry that had no meter or rhyme, had an inspiring way with words that told me they were kindred spirits.

It took a long time to work my way through the Shakespeare section, but I felt that I had a good handle on the English sonnet form after that.

 

"Could I revive within me

Her symphony and song

...

Weave a circle 'round him thrice

And close your eyes with holy dread:

For he on honeydew hath fed,

And drunk the milk of paradise!"

"The world is charged with the grandeur of God,

It will flame out, like shining from shook foil..."

"Earth, receive an honored guest;

William Yeats is laid to rest:

Let the Irish vessel lie

Emptied of its poetry."

Yes, I'll miss this little volume.  But the poems themselves are, indeed, immortal.



Design Wall Monday and Stash report

Once again it's Monday, that day when I take a picture of what's on my design wall and report any stash usage for the week.  The fun reports are over at Judy L's blog.

It's still Jack's Chain.  I met my goal for April of piecing half the units and decided to keep plugging on.  So this is representative of what I've done since last Monday; not a whole lot, but I keep piecing more small units when I get a chance.  It's going to be fun to see this come together.  I need to spend an evening cutting the white hexagons and then I can go to town.

Stash report

I now have May's UFO project, my Framed In quilt top, mounted on the Megaquilter frame and I've started quilting it.  It occurred to me that I had finished the top last year, before I started tracking fabric usage, but it's been sitting in my stash area taking up space while waiting to be quilted, so I might as well count 4 yards for that top now that it's moved onto the frame.  And another 5 yards for the vintage/ thrift store sheet I am using to back it.  There! I have yardage used!  And about time, too!

Fabric used this week: 9 yards
Fabric used year to date: 40.8 yards
Added this week: 0 yards
Added year to date: 27.2 yards
Net used for 2012: 13.6 yards

Yarn used this week: 0 yards (still plugging away on 2 shawls at once)
Yarn used year to date: 1956 yards
Yarn added this week: 0 yards
Yarn added year to date: 492 yards (all handspun, not purchased)
Net used for 2012: 1464 yards

Randomday: the day the blog eats leftovers

Grits.  Nature's perfect food.  That's what I crave when I've had a headache for four days running and wake up at 2:00 a.m. after a dream where zombies invaded my house and I had to live in the basement.  And then feel really queasy, like I'm coming down with the stomach bug that's going around at school, and can't get back to sleep, and come downstairs to play on the computer.  And then get ... well, hungry isn't quite the word, but it's a little like hungry ... you know, the feeling that you might be able to eat something, if only to keep from feeling worse ... at around 4:30 a.m.  Yep, grits (sold as polenta in the bulk bins at Winco) cooked for about 5 minutes in water with plenty of salt, 4 cups water to 1 cup grits.  Served hot with even more salt, butter, and maybe Tabasco sauce.  Sometimes Tabasco is okay with an iffy stomach; you just have to go with what sounds good.  This little pot of grits is seriously the only reason I was able to teach school at all Friday.  I had some at 4:30, a little more at 8:00, and then again when I came home for a late lunch around 1:30.  Except I melted some cheese into them then.  And I drank apricot tea.  I cannot ever have too large a supply of apricot tea.

I'm having a good randomday today.  I needed it after this week.  I needed not to have to run 20 different errands.  So I'm doing random stuff that I actually enjoy.  Like knitting: I'm several rows further along on the Traveling Companion shawl, and last night while watching Harry Potter 7 (part 2, first half) in bed I did the first beaded row on my Lady MacBeth stole.  Using dental floss!  How cool is knitting that you can turn dental floss into a creative tool?!  And my good friend Joyce gave me the viral pattern "Color Affection" that everyone else is knitting so in a very short time I may have three different shawls (that I won't wear) on the needles!  I don't know, that isn't excessive, is it?  It always seems that the closer we get to summer vacation, the more burned-out I feel and the stronger the call to just sit someplace kind of quiet and knit.

I've been playing my Civ4 game, the mod known as "Rise of Mankind" which is so complex it makes the game crash every 5 turns or so towards the end of the timeline.  I'm hoping I can play it through and win a cultural victory with 3 legendary cities.  I'm playing Empress Wu of the Chinese and the city of Guangzhou is already legendary.  Beijing, Shanghai, and Nanjing have a good chance of reaching legendary status if I keep building the right things there.  Very strange in a game of Civilization, I've only been at war once, and only for a short time, when Marcus Aurelius declared war on me in 1914 along with his vassal state, the Incans.  I was able to stop it with a resolution from the Apostolic Palace.  The real threat is Suleiman of the Ottomans, who has twice as many cities as I do but isn't as far along in culture or technology.  But even he is on friendly terms with me.  As for Mansa Musa, he is now my vassal state, after careful spy-work caused three of his cities to shift allegiance and become my cities.  Theodora, Abraham Lincoln, Isabella, and Ragnar are also kindly disposed towards me.  It is now 2014.  I do wish the game wasn't quite so glitchy, because it's going really well.

I made a double recipe of an old-fashioned recipe for rhubarb cake, but with plums instead of rhubarb.  One pan will go to church for fellowship meal tomorrow and the other will probably get gobbled up here.

I am supposed to do a detailed lesson plan using the 7 laws of teaching for Tuesday's inservice.  I think I'll just throw something together Tuesday.  I was rather annoyed by a recent email from a respected classical education source, which cautioned against the danger of teacher burnout (except they called it "dehydration") and implied that the remedy for it was - get this - MORE education!!  Can you imagine telling students 6 weeks out from summer vacation that what they really need is more classes?  Uh, yeah.  It went over about that well with me, too.

Okay, there are always more random things to gab about, but I'm done gabbing for the day.  It'll be less random until next week!

Darn Those Jeans! - my first tutorial

Here's my first ever photo tutorial!  If you have a sewing machine with a darning foot, also used for Free Motion machine quilting, it's a quick process and can add years of life to a beat-up pair of jeans.  Last week when Primigenitus was off looking at colleges with Steve I went through his clothes and found this pair that had a belt loop pulled free from the waist.

There was also a nice L-shaped tear on the upper leg -- not the knee where they usually wear out.

For this method the set-up of the sewing machine is important.  You need a darning foot or free-motion foot that is compatible with a zig-zag stitch, and you need to have a free-arm if your pants legs are going to fit under the needle.  The darning foot for my machine was a $20 purchase about 15 years ago ... best $20 I ever spent.  Even though I don't use it much for machine quilting anymore, it has helped me finish many quilts in the past, and this technique has saved probably hundreds of dollars in blue jeans... my menfolk are tough on their clothes!  Along with the darning foot, you will need to drop the feed dogs so that you control the movement of the fabric under the foot instead of it being fed through in one direction by the machine.  And you can't see it, but my machine requires you to set the pressure on the presser foot to the "darning" setting, which is the lowest possible.  This means the fabric will not be pressed tightly to the throat plate while you are working, but has lots of freedom for you to move it around.

I like the 3-step zig-zag stitch for this technique.  Set the widest stitch width.  Stitch length doesn't matter because you will be controlling that yourself.  Just be sure that your free-motion quilt is wide enough to accommodate it!

You will need a patch to back the hole and serve as a foundation fabric.  It should be about 1/2" larger on all sides than the hole.  It doesn't matter if it's not the same shape: you'll trim any excess away afterwards.  I usually use denim scraps, but couldn't find any since I cleaned out my sewing room so this is a scrap from an old chambray shirt or jumper.  I used two pins to hold it in place from the front:

I tackled the smaller hole at the waist first.  It can be a little tricky to maneuver the bulky set-up under the presser foot:

Once you get it flat, and make sure the pins are holding the patch in place on the back, lower the presser foot.  It will seem like it's the same up or down, but your machine won't work if it's up!  Bring the bobbin thread up and take a few stitches that take bites from both the patch and the edge of the hole.  The motion of the 3-step zig-zag will be left-right, but your own hands will control forwards and backwards motion.  Once you get used to this motion, you can pick up the speed.  Just be sure you remember where the pins are and remove them once you have enough stitching in place to hold the patch in place!  I used a light blue polyester thread this time: cotton thread would be fine too.  I keep going with the stitching until the entire surface of the former hole is covered with stitching.  It's like creating a new fabric over that spot.

The blue thread blends in nicely with the denim fabric.  Once the belt loop is sewn back down you'll hardly be able to notice.

This is how it looks on the back after I trimmed away the excess fabric from the patch.

True confessions: I broke two needles, both when sewing down that bulky belt loop.  You do need to be careful not to tug the jeans in any direction too quickly, especially when sewing over a bulky area.  I took a break and gave my machine a good clean-out, which it needed.

And I eventually got the thing sewn down.  It looks almost as good as new!

Then it was time to pin and sew the second hole.  I trimmed off some of the loose threads that were sticking out from the hole and would just have gotten in the way.  Since this one was on the actual leg, it was a lot more challenging to tug into position over the free-arm.

I find it difficult to take pictures of my hands while they're sewing.  This is a still shot.  The technique is the same: back and forth and up and down until all the edges of the hole are attached to the backing patch, and then all over until a new, firm fabric is created.

And here it is finished on the outside.

And on the inside... oops, the patch got folded over.  No worries: the stitching will hold it tight through many washes and the edges will fray and soften after they're trimmed.

Here it is trimmed.

And all done!  I wonder if Primigenitus has noticed that his jeans are fixed yet.  I think these are the only pair without paint spatters on them from last summer.

If you use this tutorial I hope it helps extend the life of your blue jeans and saves you some money.  And I'd love to hear back from you if you do.  Thanks for stopping by!

Sixth Grade

Source: pmmoncada.blogspot.com via Katherine on Pinterest

Sometime in late January, I dashed through the rain carrying my Latin basket, elbowed open the door of the G4 classroom, lugged myself and my gear inside, and breathed deeply. And then I noticed it.  The unmistakable smell of pre-teens who should start making daily showers a priority.  It had not been there the day before, but it was showing up, right on schedule.  Maybe a little later than usual, if my 12 years of teaching are any guide.

I have a special interest in this year's 6th grade class, because it's the one my own daughter would have been in, if she had been admitted to Cedar Tree.  But... well, that's a battle for another generation.  I have to say a profound Thank You to the teachers in the "godless" public schools, who have made her experience there so positive that I doubt I'd enroll her in a Christian school now even if I could.  And you have to know me, but that's saying something.

In my daily classes, I can't help but feel a little like the cobbler whose children have no shoes.  Especially in 6th grade - "Grammar 4."  These kids are so smart.  They have parents who love them enough to take great care and expense over their education.  But they are the most challenging class I've ever had.  For one thing, they are the largest class I've ever had: we started off the year with 18 kids.  We've lost three through the year, but at 15 they still tie the largest class I ever had before them, last year's 6th grade class.  And ... how to say this ... they constantly push me to wrestle with the issue of educational equity.  If my daughter, the one with Down syndrome, can't be in this class, it's hard to muster a lot of sympathy for the failing child who can't be bothered to study vocabulary cards or turn in homework.  It's hard to be patient when they start chattering and giggling - loudly - the instant I turn to write on the board.  And it's hard not to resent the expectations from some parents and students who think I should drop everything and be extremely responsive to a concern about, say, homework load... when the requests come at all hours, they presumably want the quality of the education to stay high, and I'm certainly not getting rich teaching 3 classes every day (my take-home pay, after tuition for my three "normal" kids, is enough to cover gas money for the month and not much more.  And I have absolutely no one to complain to about my own homework load).  I'm not saying that I'm right to be resentful, but I would sure appreciate not having quite so many opportunities to struggle with that besetting sin.

This year's 6th grade class seems extra young to me.  Last year's 6th grade class was the opposite, and I had very little time to enjoy them as children before they were all acting like teenagers, really obnoxious teenagers.  (They are so much better this year as 7th graders.  They've grown into their attitudes a bit.)  But with this year's 6th grade it's a much slower transition.  They need extra care and repetition and there are still quite a few who don't get it, or see why it matters.  Reliably there are about 3 or 4 students who get As on quizzes, but not so many A+s as there are in my other classes.  And there are a rather frightening number of them who fail quizzes, sometimes spectacularly.  I can always capture their interest by telling them stories from Roman history, but it takes a well-ordered mind in the first place to groove on Latin grammar.  It's a hard sell for them!

But there's something endearing about 6th grade.  They're still cute, although the time is limited.  I tell them at the beginning of 6th grade that when I'm finished with them, at the end of 8th grade, all the boys and about half the girls will be taller than me.  And all the girls will be very beautiful, and about half the boys will need to shave.  They giggle when I tell them this, but it's true.  I enjoy sharing 6th grade time with the 6th graders.  It's a hugely formative time in their lives, and it will be over all too fast.  And, if I have anything to say about it, they will know their Latin grammar very, very well.

WIP Wednesday - the migraine edition



I have progress to report but I'm rehashing some of my older pics because I have had a headache for two days, grades were due today, and I didn't feel up to taking new pictures.  So Jack's Chain is at the halfway point.  I have lots and lots of cute little 9-patches:

I think I have almost enough for the whole quilt top.  But a few extra cute 9-patches wouldn't be a problem to have lying around, so I keep making more when I get a chance.

This is the Framed In quilt top that I made last year.  Its number was picked by Judy L for the UFO project I need to work on in May, and I was going to have it loaded onto the Megaquilter today if it wasn't for the migraine, the grading, etc.  I do have a vintage sheet tentatively picked out for the backing:

It's the second from the bottom, the only one large enough with any blue in it.  Because it has to have blue in it if it goes in this quilt!

Other WIPs:

Farmer's Wife Quilt - finished top blogged last week, now it goes into the quilting queue to be quilted after the Framed In quilt.

March UFO knitting bag - no progress, shame on me (ditto from the last 2 weeks)

April UFO Jack's Chain quilt - met my goal of half the blocks pieced, now I'm going to keep going

startitis is still a big temptation in quilting but I'm sticking with Jack's Chain for the moment

knitting Black Roses Stole - finally ready to begin the lace border on the first half.  I have beads ready to go and bought a teeny crochet hook which is still too big, and so I'm following a tip to use Oral B Superfloss instead. 

Traveling Companion Shawl - small progress

knitting cotton bath rug - no progress

knitting argyle-fest - no progress

startitis in knitting: I want to cast on for at least one more shawl, maybe the viral "color affection."

spinning - small progress on blue Wensleydale

Freshly Pieced has the linkup party.

Book review: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Source: imgur.com via Katherine on Pinterest

J.K. Rowling's fantasy masterpiece takes on a different tone as she begins winding up her saga in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.  Up until this book, even in the darkest and creepiest scenes of books 1-5, Harry and his friends are kids and there is a pervasive sense of swashbuckling adventure.  That sense doesn't disappear in the 6th book of the series, but Harry and co. are no longer children.  Nor is this a book for children in the traditional sense.  If you've read my previous reviews of the series (and if you haven't, they are here: book 1, book 2, book 3, book 4, book 5), you will be aware that in my opinion, books 1-3 are appropriate for children but books 4 and up require greater parental involvement and discernment.  They simply may not be appropriate for your child at the present time, and only you can tell for sure. 

I have two sons who grew up with Harry Potter; we discovered the series when book 4 was about to come out and quickly read through the first three books.  Book 4 wasn't that much later although I had reservations about some scenes, and then my firstborn had to wait along with the rest of the world for each new installment every few years.  It built family togetherness and a deep appreciation of reading - both of which are priceless.  But it also gave my boys time to grow a little and develop some maturity to deal with the darker themes that run through the entire series, but especially through the final two books.  With my daughters it's a little harder.

The evil Lord Voldemort is gaining power but there is not yet open war in the wizarding world. Harry Potter has learned from some of his missteps in the 5th book: his relationship with kindly old wizard Albus Dumbledore has deepened and he is called upon to help the headmaster in some important quests, although he is not entrusted with full knowledge of the circumstances even yet.  Some are calling him "the Chosen One," while he and his friends would like to be normal teenagers, falling in and out of love and grousing about the staffing changes at Hogwarts.  Much of the book is concerned with laying necessary groundwork for the final book.  I may be the only one to think so, but it seems to me that the Pensieve as a device for relaying backstory information is just a trifle cheap: "and then Harry looked into the magic Pensieve and saw what (x-character) had seen many years ago)." It works, but just barely.  Voldemort, it appears, has engaged in a particularly evil form of black magic; not once, but many times, he has attempted to ensure his own immortality by creating horcruxes.  (And it may be just because I'm a Latin teacher, but I think it should be horcruces.  But anyway.)  Harry still struggles with intense hatred and suspicion of Professor Severus Snape and his classmate Draco Malfoy.  Is it unreasonable?  And, as will be a theme in the 7th book as well, should Harry continue to act on blind faith and loyalty even when everyone else is telling him otherwise?  Between the 5th book and the 7th book, Harry changes from a moody teenager into a leader.  This book is the turning point that allows that transformation.  There are still plenty of moody teenager moments, but the trend is upward.

Unfortunately, a major character has to be killed off at the end of this book, and great turmoil ensues.  (I myself had the ending spoiled for me by one of the worst types of Muggles at Reagan National Airport on July 17, 2005, who was talking loudly on his cell phone -- as I sat reading my hot-off-the-presses British edition -- and revealed the big secret.  Pthbtbtbt!!! I was unable to enjoy the book for a few years because of him!)  The ending is necessary but deeply unsettling and the only solution for that is to read onward to the 7th book.  Spare a moment of pity for those of us who had to wait years between them!

This book is appropriate for ages 13 and up, and may be suitable for mature 10-year-olds.  Possible areas of concern: teenage romances, dark scenes, scary creatures called Inferi, themes of death, deception and betrayal.