Goodbyes and Thank Yous

Today was the last day of school for staff. It was a good day but a sad day on many fronts. Teachers that I really enjoy working with are having to leave the school. We had jobs get surplussed and those with the least seniority had to go. I hated saying goodbye. I made some necklaces and earrings to give them. This one was for Sarika - an awesome EOC who came to cover for my next door neighbour who was on sick leave. We had such fun teaching together. I am going to miss her so much. She is one of those people who has tons of energy, a gazillion ideas and is just an amazing teacher. It isn't often that I find a teacher that I click with the way we did and the kids benefited from our working together. Plus, I learned a bunch of new things which is always great.

I gave this necklace as a thank you to my Special Education Assistant, Rita. She helped with my whole class this year even though she was really assigned to only two of the kids. She was always willing to do anything to help and I so enjoyed having the extra set of hands in my classroom for an hour a day! I call this one Rita's India Necklace partly because Rita is from India but also because it just makes me think of the colours of India.

 

The last piece I gave was a necklace that I was asked to make by my vice-principal. She is leaving us to go to a new school and so this was a special necklace to make. She brought in her button collection - a treasure box filled with all sorts of inherited items - and I created a piece of 2lery for her. This is a necklace that has a bracelet incorporated into it so it can be worn as one long necklace or as a shorter necklace and bracelet. I am happy with how it turned out. Here are the pieces shown separately.

 

 

I also made a pair of earring for Alicia. She has been at our school for two years and I have loved working with her. I am hoping that she will manage to get back into our school in the fall but it doesn't look good. Silly me, I forgot to take a photo of the earrings but I liked them so much I may just make a pair for myself and, if I do, I will post the pic here!

It was great to be back in the studio working again. I had left it for the duration of report cards and missed it. Now that I am on summer holidays, I am going to reorganize the studio so that it will work more efficiently for sewing. I have a hankering to make some clothes!