Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Unfinished Business

I've been rather MIA lately, as I've been finishing up with my student teachers. This entails driving all over Westchester (and Connecticut!), doing observations of lessons, writing reports about said lessons, and this week I've been doing my comprehensive evaluations.

They are now almost finished (one left!), and my brain is starting to be able to process other thoughts. This is lucky, because we are leaving on vacation on Saturday, and I need to begin the process of making sure that we have clean clothes, food to eat, etc. for a week. We are going to Cape Cod, where we have gone for the last several years. At first we were against the idea of going to the same place every year, but it is such a wonderful place, and there is something to be said for knowing the area, restaurants, attractions, etc. We really enjoy it, and so do the kids, and we are all looking forward to it.

That said, in planning some things we would like to do, I remembered a yarn store we stopped at last year, Ladybug Knitting. It was a nice little shop, and the kids each picked out a skein of yarn for me to make something small that would remind them of their vacation. Big Trouble picked out just about the most expensive yarn in the shop (hand dyed ArtYarns merino) and I made him a hat. He wore it all winter, and happily told everyone he ran into that his mom had made it for him. Very endearing.

Miss Serious picked out some Louet merino fingering weight. and when we were discussing going back to the yarn store, I realized that I hadn't made anything out of it. So, I dug around, pulled it out, wound it up, and started a sock for her:


The colors are great, and it's very soft (a definite requirement for anything that Miss Serious allows to touch her skin). Unfortunately, I only got one skein, so I think the socks will be quite short (you know, there's nothing more practical than ankle length wool socks....).

When I am making something the kids want, they are quite the little taskmasters. Before I started knitting, I used to cross stitch. Once I took up knitting, my unfinished projects all got put aside, never to see the light of day again. Except for one. I have made cross stitch Christmas stockings for The Professor and Miss Serious, and I began one for Big Trouble when he was born. Every year at Christmas we put up the stockings, and Big Trouble hasn't seemed to care that he has a plain, knit stocking while they have beautiful cross stitched ones with their names on them.

This year he noticed. Thus, I dug out the stocking, which will eventually look like this:

Unfortunately, at the moment it looks like this:


He asks for visual updates daily, and keeps commenting on how much he is looking forward to Christmas. He says this is not for the presents, but to see his stocking hanging up. Something tells me I won't be able to get away with a half-finished stocking this year....

2 comments:

Heather said...

I love the East coast. As a West coaster myself, I long for the days when I lived in Boston. I never made it out to Cape Cod though. I finished student teaching 2 years ago and am in the process of finishing the beginning teacher induction 2-year program. No rest for the weary :).

Bezzie said...

Aye, sometimes the traditions we start huh?! It will be beautiful when it's done though--and he already appreciates it even though it's not done! Bonus!