Gift for a Student

Although my degree and passion is design, that's not how I earn my living. For that, I followed the observation of a psychic over 30 years ago.

She said a had a big place in my heart for children.

I'm a public school teacher and have now taught for about 22 years. All told, I've had over 600 students share my life, and I remember every face, if not their names. :)

Some stand out, for one reason or another. Such was the case with this particular child.

She was a pixie of a girl. Wide set eyes, and short brown hair. In a nutshell, she had more artistic talent in her little finger than I had in my whole body! She was keenly observant, often wearing black furry cat ears to class,

One of her observations was my wire wraps, unbeknownst to me. Because one day, she solemnly handed me a big bag of shell pieces. The kind you buy at a craft store, for filling jars. I can't imagine how she convinced her mom to buy her teacher a bag of shell pieces out of the blue, but there it was.

That was 3 years ago. Now she's about to 'graduate' from my school as a 6th grader. I don't see her much, being on the other side of the campus with 2nd grade.

But at this year's school auction, I was thrilled to see that her family had bid and won my teacher auction of handknit socks. Simply, the winner gets to dye yarn with me one afternoon, and I knit them a pair of socks with the yarn.

Here are the socks:

And with the socks, here is a special wrap. I hope she likes it!

Newest wrap!

How I love thee, Boulder Opal! Thank you Gene McD, for braving snakes, giant spiders, heat and the multitude of dangers in the Outback of Australia, to bring this back to us!

Even without the pockets of opal, the ironstone matrix by itself is worthy of admiration. It's tripled in price, since I first started purchasing auctions from Gene, as more and more get entranced by this stone. And NO, I still don't have enough!

I am still woefully behind in wrapping. Just like when I first started wrapping. Lapidary came first, and it was only after I had a sizable pile of cabs with nothing to do with them, did I take to wrapping.

Pulling the cabochon from rough is so very satisfying.

BUT I was very good recently, and prepped lots of sterling and copper, to start a number of wraps.

So besides wrapping and lapidary, I started running about 3 years ago, for the first time in my life. This past weekend I ran in the Capital City Classic in the 5K. I got first place in my age group!

I still relate to myself more as a cyclist, but I was always slow as a cyclist, so it's pretty funny to find out that I'm not so slow of a runner. :) Zoom, zoom.