Teacher Appreciation Week

is the first full week in May (according to PTA site). Or, if you prefer, the NEA says that National Teacher Day is the Tuesday of the first full week in May - this year May 8, 2007. In either case I need to get hooking. I recently completed the Sweet Pea shawl for my son's 1st grade teacher (I made his kindergarten teacher the Seraphina shawl) and realized that I have never crocheted gifts for the preschool teachers (other than some small bookmarks one Christmas). Well my dd will be 'graduating' from the Sunshine School this June and heading off to join her big brother at the public elementary school in the fall. For four years these 3 wonderful teachers have been guiding and teaching my little ones, I think it's time I hook them something nice. I let the kids have a LOT of input on this and we've been pattern hunting and yarn hunting through the stash all weekend. (I'm determined these will be stash busting projects). The kids amazed me with the insights they had to their teachers personalities, colors and even styles.

This Moda Dea Scallop Wrap was posted on Yahoo crochet-a-long the other day. Both kids said it looked like Mrs. P., but it needed to be blue. I didn't have any super bulky blue yarn so we doubled up on some worsted weight yarn and made a shawl. Here's a close-up photo.

Now, on to Mrs. G. "She's not a shawl person", says my ds. "She wears scarves", adds my dd, "even inside." Colors, they decide, have to be rich, earthy, not pretty pink and purples. They liked Robyn Chachula's appropriately titled scarf pattern at Crochet me "Zen and the art of stash diving" and they really wanted me to use RH painted desert. They are dead on about the colors for this teacher, but I wasn't sure about the yarn/pattern combination, but I said I'd give it a whirl. I started, but after they were asleep I decided my gut was right and I hit the stash again and tried the same pattern with some Colinette Mohair 'Mist' leftover from the lapghan kit (shown with 'Mist' on hook here). I think a non-variegated mohair might be a better choice for the pattern. This yarn is working OK, but not for Mrs G. (too much pink and purples and I think the mohair might be too "hairy" or itchy for her).

I started again this time using a basic acrylic in Burgundy and Caron's PomPom scarf pattern that I've used before. It uses a really pretty splatter stitch pattern and I leave off the pom-poms!Last, but not least is Mrs. F, a teacher and director of the school. The kids chose mittens for her "because her hands are always always cold". They are right. She does like to have mittens in her pockets, even in summer, just in case. Most likely I'll use Sue's crocheted mittens and some simply soft in some springy colors... we still have to check the stash for this.