Labels

I have some hand sewing ahead of me! Some people gave me these labels for my birthday and for Christmas.And this is a pile of sweaters I have made, many of which now have a safety pin indicating the back of the neck. This is much more fun than sewing buttons or fixing hems! I'm also wearing an every-day sweater I finished last night. It is a navy yoke sweater with a brick and yellow yoke. I love the colors, and it is comfortable. Happy New Year!

Whoa

When you drive south, east, or southeast from Greater Cleveland you are sooner or later bound to share the roads with Amish buggies and horses. The sight always makes the children comment aloud. When driving through a small town the horses can be seen tethered in parking lots, patiently waiting for their drivers. But here is something I have not seen before: I usually drive south when visiting Amish country, and this is in a community southeast of me.

Christmas Mishaps

Do you have any Christmas stories that were, perhaps, not funny at the time, but now they are?

A few years ago I made various appetizers for my family to enjoy before our Christmas meal. One of the favorite items we all enjoy is broiled bacon-wrapped chestnuts. That year I had run out of toothpicks. I ran up to the local drug store, grabbed some toothpicks, paid and ran home to complete the preparations. When everyone was over, anticipating the snacks, an unusual aroma filled the house. It was not the pure broiled bacon aroma we were expecting, but it was not completely unfamiliar either. Was something wrong with the brand of chestnuts I had bought this time?

They looked wonderful, so I served them. I think my brother was the first to discover the error.
Mint toothpicks.

Everyone still ate them, but not with the ususal enjoyment.

The next year, my brother brought me a box of 1500 hors d'ourves toothpicks!

Christmas Eve

Last year my friend sent me a video of herself playing piano. This year I asked permission to share it here.

I tried several times to load it here, and I could not. But if you enjoy piano music, and if you like "What Child is This," you can follow the link to a lovely arrangement played by my friend, Lea Dobda.

Merry Christmas

Fröhliches Weihnachten

Joyeux Noel

Hauska Joulu

Vrolijke Kerstmis

Buon Natale

Was Sein Dies?

A few months ago Dad asked for help re-organizing his linen closet. While going through the items we found some lovely treasures, antique lace tablecloths with matching napkins and such. There were also a number of unmatched sets of dinner or luncheon napkins, doilies and table runners, and some mystery objects.
I found these two hand embroidered, counted cross stitch envelopes. I do not ever remember seeing these little envelopes before, nor does my Dad. The envelopes bear my great- grandparents' initials. My great-grandparents came to America from Germany just over 100 years ago. I think these must have has some special significance, or Mom would not have kept them. A few weeks ago, I saw something similar on Mumintroll's blog, but I was unable to comprehend the details in German about her photo.

I admire the picot edged ribbon stitched to the outside edges of the fabric. I would love to know what these are called! Are they Christmas items? And what was their purpose? I'd like to tell my children about them.

Baking

The Engineer invents a new piano-playing posture.I broke into baking today, my most-dread Christmas chore. First I made the marzipan.

I asked the Artist to make the press cookie dough. She did a great job, then for the third year in a row the cookies came out of the press looking pitiful. And the press kept falling apart as I tried to use it. Frustration reigned. I yelled at the kids, swore under my breath and got short with Rick when he called from the office, "How is your day?"

Time to clean up the kitchen. I need a nap!

Tomorrow the Artist can mix up some gingerbread cookies. When she goes off to her evening appointments I hope to attempt springerle again this year. They are one of my favorites, but I have not had much practice. The dough can rest Thursday night and hopefully I'll be happy with them on Friday.

Ahhh, Relax

Shopp-ing lists, groce-ry stores,
Driv-ing through the snow,
Oh what fun
To menu plan...

Yesterday got away from me and I never got a chance to post. When Rick is home from work, I rarely get a chance to look at the computer.

But yesterday evening all the hustle and bustle of the day was gone. We lit the fire and enjoyed a quiet evening together. I didn't even pick up the knitting needles until about 11 p.m. But I did get to enjoy a thoughtful gift from my brother-and-soon-to-be-sister-in-law.
A subscription to Knitters! I found lots to whet the appetite. It has been a while since I have done any intarsia work and there are a number of projects here that can entice me back into it.

Purple!

I seem to be all about the knitting lately. It is a symptom of avoiding that messy room in the basement that I like to call my office. It is piled with disorganized boxes from out of town and local relatives who have sent things for me to wrap. Photos would be too scary.

While the Leaf Pullover for the Artist was winding down I began to think about what to do next. I'd like to make an every day, utilitarian sweater. I came across a near pound of navy blue wool and I thought that would be a good candidate for such a sweater.While I was buying the navy blue, I fell in love with this gorgeous brick and yellow wool.
I thought setting it against a navy blue background would make the colors really pop and so that is what I have decided to do.

Originally I thought I would make a fair isle yoke sweater, only instead of following all the colors in the fair isle chart, I would use only the brick and yellow variegated yarn as the only color filling in the shapes. Now I'm considering something else.

As I started the knitting with this navy yarn, I became aware of something strange, that I could not quite pin down. Stiffness? Maybe that is the best way to describe it.

I kept knitting, but my mind was not at all on the sit com on the TV, but on figuring out what was odd about this yarn. Then I hit upon the idea of caring for this finished garment. It would be a shame if that beautiful brick and yellow yarn should be sullied by dye bleeds from the navy yarn. Then, in that sudden moment of revelation, I knew the yarn was over saturated with dye.

What to do? The first sleeve was nearly knitted. I was almost through the first skein of yarn and ready to join the second one. So I picked up three new skeins from the knitting bag and began filling my sink with hot water. I used a wee bit of laundry powder and carefully dragged the skeins through the water so as to avoid roughing up the yarn.Wow! The water in my sink turned the most beautiful shade of purple. Not some delicate winsome purple either. Bold, royal purple. It was so pretty! And I was so glad I washed the yarn. This purple should stand alone or be paired with glittering gold, not brick and yellow! It was a little trickier to wash the sleeve still on the circular needles.

The brick and yellow is from the same maker as the navy, so I think I will have to pre-wash it as well. And to show this yarn at its best I think I will forget the fair isle and make the entire yoke in the variegated yarn. As a bonus, it will knit faster that way.

Leaf Pullover Completed

The Leaf Pullover sweater for the Artist is supposed to be embellished with two leaves tacked at the neckline. They are now in place and it is truly a finished product. With some extra yarn I tweaked the Faithful Companion headband pattern from KnitPicks to have an eyelet edging similar to the garment and coordinate with the sweater. I hope she enjoys them!

At Long Last

Years and years I've been wanting and waiting for a pair of nice dress boots. As a young child, back when they were called fashion boots, it was a no-go with my parents.

As a teen I don't really remember the need being as strong. Nearly every day I went downtown, by bus, for ballet class so I wanted and needed warm walking boots more than footwear that completed a look.

When I got married I bought a beautiful pair of western boots. Because I never wore them for farm work they were suitable for dress boots and they served me well for a while. But when I had my children, I outgrew them.

Then there were the years of having to carry car seats and diaper bags, small children growing into toddlers and preschoolers -- all reasons not to bother with dress boots. For several years I wore sturdy pairs of mom-boots. The type equally good for shoveling out the driveway and carrying a toddler, a diaper bag, and purse on my left arm while holding my shopping list and another child's hand in my right (because if I don't write it down I'll never remember and because if I'm going to make this effort I darn well want to get it all done in one trip!).

In hopes that I can leave carrying small children behind me for a while, I ventured to buy myself a pair of dress boots -- at last! I found a pair I liked and tired them on. Very nice. It felt really good to wear a pair of real heels again. Too bad I had about 35 cents in my pocket.

A couple of weeks later I had a moment to stop back into the store and voila! my size was still in stock. I wore them home that day. Rick happened to have the day off. He noticed that I had grown taller when I got home from my errands. And he liked my new boots too.

St.Nicklaus & Artist's Sweater

St. Nicklaus must have made an appearance some time on the night of Dec. 5th. The children found this evidence. Of course I did not remember the camera until we had cut their oranges for breakfast.I'm right in the thick of another sweater again, this time for the Artist. With my friends, the calculator and the tape measure, I began by figuring out how to adapt the adult size pattern to my daughter. It helped that the pattern calls for a chunky size yarn and I am using a worsted weight yarn. The way the gauge swatches worked out, I'm using the third set of numbers in the pattern for stitches and the tape measure for verifying the correct number of rows.
Last night the Artist tried on the finished garment sans sleeves. It looked pretty good. I did decide to take out the finishing on the neck and make it again with ten fewer stitches picked up.

After she went to bed I began sewing up the seam on the first sleeve. Then I pinned and basted it to the garment to check the fit. I am still uncertain whether I'll have to remake the sleeve caps. This is the place where my reducing the pattern did not seem to work with the number of rows I'd take to properly reduce the number of stitches. Half way through the cap I began reducing with sssk's and k3together's to keep it from becoming too large. Now I'm having my doubts as to whether that was the right thing to do.

Once the basted sleeve was in place I got out a spray bottle and did a little blocking on the lace edging all around the hems and neck. The layers facing the carpet are still a little damp this morning, so maybe I'll have her try on the one-sleeve garment after lunch. Then I should be able to judge for certain whether I need to remake the sleeve caps.

One of the first things that attracted me to this pattern was the lace edging at the hems and neckline. Here is a close up. I'm so glad I swatched the lace pattern first. I discovered my product looked nothing like the photo. Then I searched on line for help and found out that I've been doing yarn-overs incorrectly all this time. Strike heel of hand to forehead, feel stupid, repeat. And I've been happy with the lace items I've made the wrong way. Imagine how much I'd enjoy them if they were done properly. At least I have expanded my knowledge base now and I can make higher quality things in the future.

A Date that Will Live in Infamy

Perhaps Pearl Harbor is most remembered today but December 7th has been an important date in American history a few times before and since 1941.

In 1787 Delaware ratified the US Constitution. They were the first state to do so and the vote was unanimous, 30-0.

In 1917 the USA declared war on Austria-Hungary in WWI. It is called The Great War and it was called the War to End All Wars. Earlier in the year the US had entered the war against Germany.

In 1972 the latest moon mission, Apollo 17, blasted off from Cape Canaveral.

These world famous historic figures celebrated birthdays:
1598, Italian sculptor, Gian Lorenzo Bernini
1761 Waxworks museum founder Marie Tussaud

And in various years these people celebrated their birthdays: Noam Chomsky, Harry Chapin, Priscilla Barnes, Larry Bird, Tino Martinez, Terrell Owens, Nicole Appleton, Alan Faneca, Emily Browning, and Johnny Bench

Do you know of any others?

Expecting Chaos

Last night our contractor-neighbor came over to give us a price on the partial remodel we want to do in our kitchen. We were hoping to get this work done around the same time as the bathroom remodel last February, but as it turned out with his schedule and ours we needed to wait.

Maybe we will be spared the 8-10 inches of snow fall per day during the time the work is to be completed this time!

First our floor needs to be replaced. This means the stove and refrigerator, shoe shelf, and waste basket will need to take up temporary residence in the dining room. Everything that is stored in the under the counter cabinets will need to move when the counters are replaced. I guess I'll be saving boxes at Christmas time to store these things in the Florida room.

When this chaos is over we should have a floor that can be cleaned and actually look clean when it is cleaned (imagine that!), a new stainless steel sink with a faucet that does not drip (hooray!), and counter tops the do not clash with everything Thousand thank-yous, Rick!

Christmas Sweater

A new sweater for the Engineer Was completed late Saturday night and was set out to block. This morning, it is almost dry. If the Engineer looks a wee bit uncomfortable it is because he is not used to wearing sweaters that are still a bit damp in the back. I am thrilled with the way the sweater came out and with how quickly this pattern knitted up with my only change being color scheme and ribbing in K1 P1 instead of K2 P1. But I also have made some notes to keep in mind next time I use this pattern for help it fit even better. The Back to School Pullover is the third pattern in the top row of this link.

The kids came home from a weekend with their grandparents to find the Jesse tree and the advent wreath in the dining room. We have the non-traditional advent wreath this year because I thought I had purple candles. I went to my candle drawer and found three ridiculously stumpy purple candles that begged to be put in the trash. Next to them I had several new pink candles, and here we are...Sunday afternoon was dedicated to swatching for the Artist's sweater. I got out my calculator and did all the measurements and math required to reduce an adult size pattern to fit her. I also got started with my cast on and knitted until I realized I had once again twisted my yarn while joining in the round. Drat!

Next time I cast on straight needles and knit a couple of the beginning rows before transferring to the circular needles. This worked much better for me, and I used the little tail to sew closed the three rows I had worked on the straight needles.

But getting any actual knitting accomplished yesterday was doomed. After I had knit about three inches there was a knot in the ball of yarn making an unnatural join between the bright pink and the white. So I cut the yarn and rejoined at a more natural place in the color scheme. I made a terrible join and I grew increasingly unhappy with it every time I passed that place knitting the next several rounds. So before I went to bed I rewound the whole thing.

My big hang-up with beginning this project was getting through all the math and measurements. Now that those parts are done, I am eager to proceed. Before I cast on again I'll knit a swatch of the edging on the pattern (see it here). I could have been happier with the yarn overs in the lace edging and I could use some practice to get just just the look I'm after.

In my knitting marathon weekend I did not get lesson plans printed for the kids this week. On Wednesday, the Artist has a Latin final going beck to second semester last year. Her time will largely be dedicated to studying for that. I made a giant stack of flash cards for her to learn.

The Engineer and I will go through a few subjects then start some house cleaning. Won't he be thrilled!

Science Lab

I am happy that with regard to home schooling I am not a pioneer. I'm thankful for the friends and acquaintances I have sharing this adventure. And lately I've been most thankful for friends with children much older than mine who thought of me when they made room for college books on their shelves.

We were generously given a microscope set a few years ago. And this week, for the Artist's science experiment, she got to use it for the first time.

First her experiment instructed her to drop a drop of iodine on a potato. If it remained yellow-orange there would be no starch present. It turned a vivid blue-black instantly. She watched the inky blob expand across the surface of the potato under her magnifying glass.Next, we took a scraping from the potato, prepared a slide, and looked into the microscope world. We both look forward to many interesting science labs in the future.

Seasons Change

I'm not ready for it but it is happening anyway. Over the weekend the Engineer wanted to play outside. When he asked if he could shovel snow how could I say no? There were actually more leaves in the driveway than show, but he had his own hap hazard fun anyway:
He made a slushy pile of leaves at the bottom on the back stoop steps. And another right in the middle of daddy's side of the driveway. Thank you, son.

That was a few days ago. The snow is gone now, if only for a while. It was gone long enough for me to try one more time to gather fresh parsley to add to the crab croquettes I mixed up for last night's dinner. Under the entrapped leaves there were still a few good looking sprigs of parsley large enough to harvest. I have frozen some baggies of parsley to use in the winter , but the fresh is so much nicer.

After knitting the scarf I wrote about on Monday, I began a sweater for the Engineer. I jockeyed his position in my queue partly because he is smaller and I'm following a simple pattern, therefore his projects are faster. So far the front, back and shoulders are done. Hopefully I can knock out the sleeves this week and finish the neckline and seaming during the Brown's game on Sunday. I figured I could get this done rather quickly and keep busy while I stall and stall and stall some more before casting on for a more complex sweater for the Artist. The sweater I make for her will require my adjusting an adult pattern down to her size. I am not confident, so I plan to make lots of gauge swatches and use tons of lifelines and hope not to need too many of them.

As Christmas decorations are going up all around us, I still have my autumn decor bucking the trend. This is my favorite piece. It hangs inside the vestibule door in the living room. The advent box is still up in the attic, but I still hope transition our home from thanksgiving to advent before Sunday morning.

We are going to have our largest group of guests ever this Christmas, so Rick and I have already decided to use our doesn't-smell-real-but-takes-up-a-lot-less-room-than-a-real tree this Christmas. That means two years in a row we will all miss doing this:

Hug For Snickers Scarf

Learn About Snickers Here

Over the weekend I completed the Hug For Snickers scarf for the Artist. She wore it to play on Saturday and to church on Sunday and pronounced it very warm. Mission Accomplished! And it coordinated beautifully with the pale pink coat her grandparents bought her and the pale pink dress coat her cousin handed down to her.

The scarf has the X and O (kisses and hugs) patterns on the edges and alternating cat's paw and kitty face lace in the center panel. Over the Thanksgiving weekend we were treated to our first accumulating snow of the autumn. The kids welcomed the weather and built a small wet snowman on the back steps. With the weather just barely at 32 degrees F he lost his features little by little. And by time to kiss Daddy good-by on Monday morning, he made for peals of laughter from the kiddos. Poor soppy snowman.

Miles and Miles

It has been quite a while since I've reported on my walking. I'm so glad we invested in a treadmill years ago. With my children still being too young for me to take off for walks around the neighborhood, the treadmill helps me get the job done. Taking a week and a half off to rest an ankle really kills one's exercise goals.

Thankfully, the rest did get rid of the pain, although the swelling is still there sometimes. I think it will be with me for a while. New walking shoes have made a difference too. How much of a difference I have yet to learn because, per doctor's advice, I am not walking at the steep incline I like to use.

Treadmill view: The Engineer enjoys Wheel of Fortune or
Jeopardy with me while I walk.

August went along as expected, 20.05 miles.

September. Well, in September I logged the fewest miles since the new year, only 12.25. Since then, I've been making up missed miles little by little. Sometimes it is only a tenth or a twentieth of a mile extra I'll walk. Other times I'll have the time, ankle stamina, and energy to walk an extra quarter or three tenths. Eventually it all came together.

October brought me some very slight increases in incline. I'm still not able to walk at "full tilt" for a reasonable length of time. But I did begin making up some missed miles from the prior month. In October I put 19.75 miles on the mill.

November is not over yet, but I'm determined to keep up the pre-injury pace. So far I have 14.20 miles with eight days to go.

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!

The Artist and the Engineer will join the children's choir is singing Come, Ye Thankful People, Come for our church service tomorrow. They have been preparing for a few weeks.

I'm beginning some small preparations for our feast hosted by my in-laws tomorrow as well. I have the sourdough starter out of the refrigerator to proof (get all bubbly). It is smelling nice and beer-like and looking ready for the next step.And I have the heavy cream draining into a jar to be made into butter. Mmmmm...so sweet and good with the fresh bread.
The bread is made with a mix of white and whole wheat flour. This way I can add in a little more nutrition and still keep the bread fairly soft. This will be the first time I'm serving my home made sourdough bread outside my immediate family. I hope it goes well!

Come, ye thankful people, come;
Raise the song of Harvest home.
All be safely gathered in
Ere the winter storms begin;
God, our Maker, doth provide
For our wants to be supplied.
Come to God;s own temple, come;
Raise the song of Harvest home.

I nearly forgot...23 cups of pumpkin puree.

That's a lot of soup waiting to be made.

Burnt Orange, Yellow, Bronze and Brown

It was a colorful weekend in my kitchen. While the Artist was away at a Tae Kwon Do tournament I had a chance to cut up the large pumpkin Rick and the kids bought in October. I didn't get any photos of that, but I imagine you all know what a pumpkin looks like anyway.

I roasted the pieces of pumpkin meat until they were soft enough to separate from the skin. They were a homey-smelling burnt orange and yellow when them came out of the oven. Then I began mashing until I had enough to make a large pot of pumpkin soup (a flour and butter roux with pumpkin, milk, water, ham, onions, nutmeg added), a more attractive yellow than my photo indicates. When Rick and the Artist came home, I was still making pumpkin puree. I had graduated to the blender because I was making puree to freeze for pie, cookies, soup, bread, whatever was needed first.

Those two were exhausted from a long day, but very proud of the Artist's two new bronze medals. She scored more points in sparring than ever before and sparred against her toughest tournament opponent to date. She also won a bronze in the forms competition. Rick told me that a tenth of a point separated her from the gold medal winner. Sounds like it was a pretty tight race! After loading three containers with 18 cups of puree I needed to do some searching form more containers. There was a lot of pumpkin left. Two more cups went into the soup. I started running the dishwasher so I could use some more containers that were in there, and I began mixing up a double recipe of pumpkin bread. The house began to smell so good, and our mouths began to water as we played Monopoly and waited for the bread to be done. It emerged from the oven a deep beckoning brown, but it did not cool before bed time. We decided to have it for breakfast Sunday morning. It was a delight! I like it spread with sour cream or cream cheese. The Engineer likes it spread with butter. The Artist and Rick like it without any spread. I'm sure the last of it will be finished today.

Sleeveless Ribbon Shell

Come spring time or warm weather, whichever is first, I'll open my dresser and experience that little excitement of a brand new garment to wear. Finally the Deborah Newton sleeveless ribbon shell is complete. Thank you, dear Artist, for interrupting your school work to be my photographer.

I had a worried moment at the end. While biding off the last sleeve edging the end of the yarn came dancing into my field of vision. It would be a pain in the neck to join a new yarn just to complete a bind off. But this was more serious, I had no more yarn to join. Now I was so very thankful that I had made the neck and sleeve edgings narrower than the instructions prescribed.

I am so pleased with the way this garment turned out. The ribbon yarn was a new experience. It is beautiful, but I am not sold on its long term merits.

Next I have a smaller project lined up...a Hug for Snickers scarf. The pattern I bought for the Engineer's sweater has not arrived in the mail yet. Maybe I'll receive it by the time the scarf is complete.

Morning Routine

This was not originally as assignment, just something the Artist wanted to write. I decided to make it a teachable moment and she adjusted the meter a little from her original draft. Now it resides in her English binder.

Morning Routine

My bed is warm,
The air is cool.
But I must get up,
For I have school.

I fix my bed
So it looks neat,
No bumps, humps or lumps
In any sheet.

Next I have to
Comb my hair,
Get all the tangles
Out of there.

I put my brush
On top of my head,
Then I comb down, down, down
Start over again.

Up, down, up, down,
Up, up, down,
'Til my hair is not
Twisted around.

I wash my face
'Til it's squeaky clean.
Then I am ready
to primp and preen.

My clothes are on
The chair over there
I take off PJs
Put my outfit on.

Next it is time
To exercise.
What is it today?
Weights or stairs?

It is not weights.
It's stairs today.
They are easier,
But they take more time.

I walk one up,
Then one down.
A second time up,
And down again.

I do it o'er
And over again
Until I reach
The number ten.

Now to my chair
And eat breakfast.
Now I must do school,
Which is sometimes a pest.

Two Necks and a Sleeve

No, I have not made an unusual biological transformation overnight.

I am trying to complete a summer sweater, and I'm having to re-do some of the finishing. The sweater fits beautifully in the length and it has just the right amount of blousing.

After sewing the side seams and shoulders, the instructions tell how many stitches to pick up for the neck. I thought the number for my size seemed a little big, so I picked up the number for one size smaller and finished the neck. Then came the telling moment when I tried on the garment in front of a mirror.

Yikes! The neckline didn't look at all like the model in the book. It came out as a low, but not too low scoop neck instead. How did this happen? I decided I could live with it, but I had hoped it would have been more like the photo accompanying my pattern.

On to the sleeve. When I had the sweater on I noticed the arm holes were on the larger size. So I decided to pick up the number of stitches for a size down on the sleeve too. As the sleeves are only one and three quarter inches at their longest point and one inch at the shortest point, it was not a long time until the sleeve was done.

Back to the mirror...oh no! Still too big. Now I had a neck and a sleeve I was unhappy with,so I spent the rest of the evening ripping them both back. Thankfully, Berroco's glace ribbon yarn cooperated fairly well with undoing a bind-off.

Now the garment was back to needing a neck and two sleeves. On Sunday evening I had the opportunity to get the neck going again. I did a little math and found the number of stitches I would need to go two sizes smaller than before. This time it knitted up nicely and I am very pleased with it.

I'll tackle a sleeve again neck time I knit, probably this evening. This time I'll try to making the sleeves two sizes narrower than before.

Making the Grade

Yesterday the Artist and I had some appointments to deal with and so the Engineer went to visit his grandpa for a few hours in the morning. To keep him busy, and to salvage something from the school day, I packed a few school papers for him. They were not too complicated for him to work through on his own.

The Engineer loves math, and I thought he'd relish the opportunity to show off a little of his math skills for grandpa. One subtraction worksheet went into the backpack.

We lost some science time last week when I was sick, so I found a couple of worksheets on the Enchanted Learning dot com site that would keep the animals we were studying in his mind. One whale worksheet and one horse worksheet went into the backpack.When I came to pick him up, the Engineer told me he did all his work. Then Grandpa gave me a grin and said "He graded it all by himself too!" with a twinkle in his eye. It seems the Engineer thinks quite a bit of his work. He gave himself three A+ grades.

I laughed when I got home and sat down to grade his work. He read the title of the whale paper, ("Mystery Whale Connect the Dots") but did not think about what a mystery was. After connecting the dots, the child should see the distinct outline of a sperm whale. The paper asked, "What is this whale called?" My resourceful son does a brief bit of research without consulting his memory bank and prints "Mystery whale." Very clever, my dear, but not worth an A+.

Plant Chromatography

The Artist is excited whenever she gets to conduct a science experiment. Yesterday was one of those days. She separated the pigments within some samples of plants from the yard. This experiment was very simple and it was fun. I think it would be interesting to try it again with some vegetables or tree leaves next summer.

First she crushed a yellow marigold blossom and leaves along with a white mum and its leafy stem. She pulverized with in a few teaspoons of acetone and poured the odd mixture into a beaker. We cut up a coffee filter and suspended it from the top, letting it trail into the mixture, then put it aside for an hour. In the picture you see two papers ready for the liquid because I was experimenting to see whether tissue paper would work. It did not.

After the hour we were treated to quite a sight! The various shades of yellow on the paper began so subtly and ended up so vivid. In between there was just a hint of green in a narrow band.

Time allowed one more sample yesterday. This time the Artist selected a cutting from a deep rust colored mum with some of its leaves. The colors it yielded are on the right in this picture. We expected more reds. But the little bit of rusty brown at the bottom and the blue at the top are interesting too.
After the papers were dry the time came to record the data and explain what she learned. Meanwhile, the Engineer is completing a geography lesson.