book club or quilt club?

This weekend, my book club and I got together to quilt.  One of our members teaches at quilt retreats.  When she suggested that the group spend the weekend at her house for a quilt retreat, everyone thought it was a great idea.  The eight of us  spent Friday evening and Saturday working on our disappearing four patch quilt squares.  I learned a few things about cutting fabric and enjoyed working on this with others around.  It was interesting to see everyone's color choices and how it can make something look so different.  Though I only got seven sewn on Saturday, I was able to spend time on it yesterday at home.  The blocks take a bit more time than I expected, but I do like how they look when completed.  This is now on my list of things I want to finish in 2015.  

scavenger hunt

The other day ten of my family members and I went to a nature park reserve when we had the day off school.  It being a nature park, I planned a scavenger hunt.  The list was not long or complicated and included the following things:

• something smooth
• something that looks like the letter l
• 2 kinds of seeds
• 5 different types of leaves
• tree bark
• something black 
• a piece of trash
• a circle rock
• something rough
• a stick the length of your foot
• something alive
• an acorn
• a picture of your team
• a funny shaped stick

In teams of three (one adult and two children), they had twenty minutes to find everything.  When they all returned, we shared our results.  The picture above was from one team, and another team actually found a worm for their living item.  I enjoyed seeing the variety and everyone enjoyed the activity.  Now I am thinking of ways I could incorporate a scavenger hunt into my English classes. 

FYI-the picture is of my farmer brother and my two nieces.

If Rocks Could Sing

If Rocks Could Sing by Leslie McGuirk is a cleverly done alphabet book.  Over a period of years, McGuirk collected rocks representing each letter of the alphabet.  She also collected other rocks to represent items for each letter.  With these pairs of rocks for each letter, she put them together in a book.  My friend's preschool daughter enjoyed it.  I  read it to my kindergarten and first grade students.  If you like alphabet books, look for this one at the library.  Your children or students will enjoy it. 

solids

I finished this quilt last night.  It is my third attempt at making a quilt with solids.  (You can see the others here and here.)  After I put this one together, I wished that I had just used squares instead of the triangles, but I think the recipients will like it anyway.  Funny that I finished my quilt with Kona solids...this week my sister did the same, you can see the quilt here.  What color scheme would you use in a quilt where the fabric was all solids?    

The Rent Collector

The Rent Collector by Camron Wright is a novel I finished reading over the weekend.  I do not remember where I first heard about it, but it was definitely worth reading.  Sang Ly lives in a garbage dump in Cambodia with her husband and young son.  Her family is just trying to survive...her husband picks through trash every day in hopes of finding enough of value to sell.  Sang Ly also picks through the trash and one day  finds something  that helps her make an unexpected friend.  The author did a good job of portraying the characters and showing the challenges of people who live at the dump.  This book reminded me that people are not always what they seem on the surface.  It would be a good story to discuss with a friend or a book group. 

salsa

Last Saturday my sister and I made salsa from some of the tomatoes from the garden.  With my fondness for salsa, it is about time I learned to make my own.  Hopefully there are plenty of tomatoes and enough time each year to make salsa.