brain cramp

So I have started knitting aChristmas Stocking for a really nice woman who recently adopted a child from Russia. Over the summer she told me about the stockings that her mother lovingly knit for all her grandchildren (I loved the part about how they got bigger as the years went on and her mom's gauge grew). Sadly her mother was not here to meet this grandchild or to make her a stocking, so Jean asked if I knew anyone she could hire to make one for Krystina. I of course told her I would do and she could pay me in coffee! SO she ordered a kit from Patternworks in New Hampshire, and I got to work. I couldn't figure out why the instructions called for straight needles in addition to dpns, so I cast on the dpns. When I finished the cuff, it finally hit me - the intarsia part of the stocking was to be knit flat, then they tell you to change to dpns. Boy did I feel dumb as I frogged it! In my defense, it doesn't say to cast on using straight needles, you only kind of figure that out when they tell you to change to dps for the heel. Now I am back on track. The pattern is really cute - its a teddy bear sitting next to a xmas tree. I plan to jazz it up a little! The ornaments are supposed to be duplicate stichted in colored yarn, but I think they really need to be little crystal beads. Now if I could only figure out how to explain this project to the rabbi when he sees me knitting in front of the kid's hebrew school.