'Tis the Season...

to be doing that last minute gift knitting!! I started working on my first Christmas project. Last Christmas my mom got engaged and then they were married on Cinco de Mayo (not that day for that reason) this last May. So this will be the first Christmas with the two being married. My biological parents got a divorce was I was six years old. My dad remarried right away, but my mom has been a single parent all these years. The man she married in May did not have any children of his own, but always wanted some. He was treated my sister and me and like his own children so I decided to knit him a stocking with "Dad" on it. I am also going to make my mom one with "Mom" on it. His will have Santa Claus and hers will have Mrs. Claus. How cute is that!?! Here is the start (almost done!!) to his stocking:



I am so proud of myself!! This project had a little fair aisle and intarsia! Besides a class I took where we did a little practice with intarsia, this is my first project where I had to use this technique. There was plenty of frogging along the way, but I did it! Eddie was watching me knit this stocking with about 6 bobbins of yarn hanging from it. He usually likes to poke me or tickle me. I told him that this needed my full concentration and he shouldn't even think about messing around with me. He looked over and said he could tell that I had plenty going on and he wasn't even gonna think about disrupting me at that point.

It was a struggle, but I'm looking forward to starting the stocking for my mom and finishing this one up (oh how I hate seaming!). I may do stockings for my sister and me so that we have a complete set for the family, but we'll see how I feel about it after I finish the other two.

I still want to knit something for my cousin's baby for Christmas. I have a lace scarf for my sister that needs blocking (although I'm not certain on how to do this for a lace scarf). I want to make an illusion scarf for my friend. I'm not sure I'll have time for any other Christmas knitting.

P.S. Another tiny thing... :)

Tiny Things

So I don't know if I am the only one, but I love tiny things. And when I say tiny things, I mean real life things that are made miniature. For example, sometimes at the craft store they have little dollhouse furniture and may also have things like little tiny fried eggs, little tiny dishes, little tiny tennis racket, you know, whatever. There is a point to this. Over the weekend I knit mini mittens! They are the cutest thing. I finished one and couldn't stop laughing. Something about that mini mitten that no one will ever wear brought so much joy to me. Eddie was like "what are you going to do with that???" Who cares! Look how cute they are:



I have patterns for mini sweaters and hats also. I was thinking that they could be Christmas ornaments or I could decorate a wreath with them. Or maybe I'll just keep them in my purse and pull them out every time I need some cheering up.

Also this weekend I finished a pair of socks, which is oh so gratifying! Especially when you have finished both socks :)

Fifth Times a Charm

That's right. You read correctly. FIFTH time! I wish I could say third times a charm, but that just wasn't so with this particular project. I am making the Diamond Knit Shawl by Lion Brand. I've been wanting to make a lace shawl, but wasn't sure that I wanted it to take a long time like it would on lace weight. I found a pattern that uses a bulky weight and I had plenty of yarn for it in my stash. Double bonus. I found the pattern on Ravelry. Once again, kudos for Ravelry!! Anyway, I have done lace before and wasn't having any problems with this pattern. Then two days ago I had a horrible thing happen. I got to the end of the row and I didn't have enough stitches left to finish the repeat. Never a good thing. So I frogged back and fixed the error. Then continued along with the pattern only to have the same thing happen again two or three rows later. Again, I frogged. This happened 4 times! I couldn't believe it. For me, it is difficult to frog when the pattern has yo's. So I would have to frog back to a row that didn't have any yo's.

Fortunately I can report that I stuck with it and finally got my grove back. I was so upset yesterday and was complaining about how many times I had to frog the dang thing that my boyfriend said, "Maybe you should try working on something else. This project doesn't seem to be making you very happy." He means well, but he's not a knitter so he just doesn't understand. I knew I just had to persevere to win the battle. :)

Here's the progress of the shawl after getting back on track:




And since I haven't been great about posting pictures, here's one of me teaching :)

The Birds and the Bees

Today was my second time substituting for my master teacher's class. The kids were pretty well behaved (none of them ran away this time). It seems like at least once a week we have a bee fly into our classroom. If we turn out the lights and shut the blinds, the bee will usually head straight for the sunlight coming through the open door and leave. Today we had a bee fly in, so I did the routine (calm kids down, turn out lights, leave door open). The bee flew out of the room shortly after.

Then today during math we had a bird fly into our classroom. That's right! A real live BIRD!!! What are the chances (pretty good if I'm the substitute I guess). Anyway, the kids went absolutely bonkers (which I can't really blame them because how often does that really happen??). We tried to use the same technique that we use to encourage the bees to leave, but it didn't work at all. I tried to settle the kids down by telling them to ignore the bird. No such luck. So I had all of the kids put their heads down on their desks. Then I told them that if they were SO interested in the bird that they couldn't stop talking about it or looking at it, then they would have to write a research report on birds. That pretty much got the kids back on task. The principal came into the room and called for someone to get the bird out. Before someone came to save the day, the bird flew out of the room on its own.

Never a dull moment when Ms. B. is the substitute :)

I can't even relate this to knitting, but it was too good of a story not to share.

S-T-R-E-S-S

Here's your warning...This is a long post, but probably worth the read.

I thought I knew the meaning of this word. This last week I discovered the true meaning of it. I have been student teaching for 6 weeks now. Last week, I was stressed about student teaching, being observed and getting work for school done. This week was a whole new thing. While student teaching, you are allowed to substitute for your master teacher. This is highly recommended if you know your master teacher will be gone because if you don't they have to hire a substitute. Since you know the students' schedule better than the sub, you will end up doing all of the work while the sub reads a book and gets paid. Needless to say, I went to the district office and paid for my emergency credential so that I can sub for my class. This last Tuesday was my first day as a sub. I was only to sub in the morning because I had classes in the afternoon. There is a particular child in this class who is TROUBLE. We'll call him "C." About a week earlier C was hiding out in his brother's Kindergarten class and we thought he was absent. When the school called his house his mother said that he did indeed go to school that day. There was a little freak out and then he was found. C was in major trouble and lost all the recesses until he made up the time that he missed by going to his brother's room.

The day that I was substituting, C had to stay in at recess. He asked me if he could take his little brother his lunch. Since I didn't want to have his brother go hungry, I let him go. I told him to come right back. The recess bell rang and C had not returned. After a lot of calling around the school and paging him to go to the office, the secretary called me and asked me to describe what he was wearing that day. WHAT!?! I have 33 students, and I'm supposed to remember what he was wearing down to the color of his shoes??? I did the best I could.

Later the police found him walking down this very steep hill WITH HIS BROTHER (kidnapping much??) walking back towards his house. I was pretty calm and collected throughout the whole ordeal and didn't lose it until I was driving to school. I drove down the same hill where they found C walking and I noticed that there are some places without a sidewalk. I was freaking out about how the two kids could have been hit by a car or kidnapped. After school, I talked with my master teacher and she said that I couldn't have handled the situation any better and the principal said that I did everything exactly right.

C came to school on Wednesday for Halloween. He was absent on Thursday with an excuse. On Friday he was absent again, but no excuse from the parents. C takes the bus to school with his brother. A parent saw two kids walking down the hill and immediately called the principal. Apparently the bus dropped the kids off at the school and C promptly took his brother and walked back towards home. The principal had to go and pick them up and bring them back to school. During some meetings C was asked why he ran away from school. First he said that another girl in class was mean to him (so not the case. The girl doesn't even sit near him in class). Then he said that his teacher has been mean to him since he got in trouble for going to his brother's class last week (such a lie). Then he said it's because I never call on him during class (lie again). This kid is a little B.S.er.

So yesterday the secretary called the classroom while I was alone teaching the kids. C was in the office. She let me know that a man would be coming in to observe the class. I had no idea who he was, but just went on my way teaching my lesson. It turns out that the observer was a retired parole officer that was observing me to see if I was only calling on the same students in class. It just so happened that when he came to observe me we were doing something that involved the students giving responses to my questions. The same students kept raising their hands so I said (as I always do) "I need to see new hands or I'll start calling on people." The report he gave back was that I couldn't be doing it any better. I even asked other kids to answer and called on the ones who raised their hands evenly. I wasn't aware of the fact that he was coming to observe that exact thing.

In the last week I had my first substituting job, had a student run away and was observed by a retired parole officer. Much too much excitement for one week! What does this possibly have to do with knitting?? (Since I always try to bring it back to that). Not even knitting is relieving the stress from all of this. I am definitely trying though. Been doing a lot of knitting instead of the things I "should" be doing. Hopefully that will relieve some of the tension. At least as much as possible when what I really need is to spend a week/month in Hawaii :)