Potholders Galore!

Every year around October/November I come up with plan for the gifts for the daycare workers/teachers that take care of my two girls. In my mind I rationalize that making something will be more personal and cost effective. Technically, that's true except I never take into account the time it takes to make the gifts. Because Iva is still only 2, she has 6 teachers in her room. RJ has a teacher and teacher's assistant, a dance teacher, and a music teacher. That's 10 gifts minimum, if I don't count support staff at the school. In the past I've knitted dishcloths, so I wanted to do something different. This year I thought perhaps crocheted potholders. I can crochet fairly fast, and it uses kitchen cotton which I have a lot of already. What I didn't count on was that most of my kitchen cotton is pink (I think I had in mind making heart-shaped dishcloths for Valentine's Day last year), which doesn't seem like it would match most kitchens. I'm also not sure when I thought I'd have time to do this. My teaching load was manageable, but I've been working on a grant and I was on our department's job search committee and the college's curriculum committee. Both committees took huge amounts of time. Then there were the inevitable illnesses that come from having two young children at school/daycare and working at a university. Forging forward despite the lack of time, my wonderful friend Marie passed along some kitchen cotton in colors other than pink (thanks Marie!). I then brainstormed some more and figured the best accompaniment to potholders would be baked goods, and I have a special family recipe for a raisin spice bread that is quite yummy. I also wanted to bake the bread in decorative cardboard mini loaf pans. As luck would have it, I discovered the really fun site Pick Your Plum and within a couple days they were selling mini loaf pans for cheap! I quickly ordered a couple packs and awaited their arrival. I was already doubting my ability to finish so many potholders when the loaf pans arrived. They were super tiny. Like, smaller than a cupcake tiny. I had neglected to carefully check the actual measurements (totally my fault), and should have ordered the larger size. I would need to make at least 3 "loaves" per teacher for it to be anything more than a joke. At this point, I knew the whole plan was doomed and began to slow my production of potholders. In the end, I finished a respectable four and learned my lesson about making gifts for teachers (maybe). At any rate, I can work on some more throughout the year and have enough for next year. Still not sure what to do with my itsy bitsy loaf pans, but I'm sure I'll think of something. ;)