Here's the tea cozy that I made for my teapot. As I mentioned last night, I am really impressed with how well it keeps the tea hot for a rather lengthy amount of time. It has one layer of a special insulating batting inside it as well as a regular layer of batting. The designs that are on the front and back are free machine embroidery designs that I got off the internet some years back and finally found the perfect item to stitch them on. The redwork designs just said (to me) that they needed to be stitched on flour sack dish towels...so used the dish towel to make the outside of the cozy.
I had a usual Tuesday of school. Joseph had a red letter day in school today. He started the Movable Alphabet. He got to start the movable alphabet because he knows all the sounds that the letters make. For the moment he is finding out where the letters are in the box. Once he is familiar with the location of the letters, we will start making three-letter phonetic words. I will sound out the word...he will find the sounds that are in that word and put them out on the floor and then after he has made a line of words then we go back and he will sound them out. He will do this till he can "hear" the words that he is saying when he blends the letters together. It isn't an overnight ah ha moment in reading...but a gradual process. But it is pretty exciting to see the light bulb come on when they realize that they are reading. It's an interesting learning process...quite a few in our family have learned to read with the Movable Alphabet: Melany and Nathan when they went to the local Montessori school many moons ago...and, in more recent years: Graham, Abigail, Joy, Esther, Elijah, Isaac...and now Joseph. This is one of quite a few actual Montessori items/equipment that we have in our school room here at the house. I have taught hundreds of children to read using the sand paper sounds and then the movable alphabet as the spring board into reading. I really do wonder how many children I have taught to read! When I was in second grade (REALLY many moons ago!) I decided that I wanted to be a teacher so I could teach children how to read...guess that dream came true!
Joy worked some more on piecing her quilt top together. She is just about finished. The top should be together after one more sewing session. It is looking great! Now to find just the perfect fabric/s for the back and the binding on the quilt. We've got to get the fabric bought so they can be washed and pressed before her next sewing time next week. That way we can get the top sandwiched with the batting and backing and get it pinned together so we can get started on quilting it. I will do most of the quilting using my machine. I do plan to let her do some of the quilting so she can get an idea of how it is done. I'm looking forward to the quilting...that's a part of quilting that I enjoy.
Woody went for his walk this morning while I was reading with the children. He included a stop at a close-by grocery store to pick up a couple of things that I needed to try out a new recipe for tonight's meal. He also did some work in one of the gardens today...pulling up dry stuff, etc. He is at the prayer room at church right now. He drove this evening since he had walked earlier today. He knew that it might be raining this evening so chose to walk while it was dry. So far we haven't seen the predicted rain.
Pretty much as soon as lunch was over, I got busy on tonight's supper. I was cooking a pot roast so needed to get it in the oven so it would have plenty of time to cook. I found a new recipe for pot roast last night and decided to try it: Asian-Style Pot Roast. It was really good. We also had rice to go with the sauce that the meat made while cooking and had carrots cooked with the roast and I also stir-fried some onions and yellow and orange bell peppers. Everything was very tasty. A good change of pace and it got something else out of the freezer (the roast).
