As a surprise for her birthday, I brought Elisabeth to PaintAway to create a ceramic masterpiece.
She chose to paint a big mug…
…while I chose to make a “match-up” teapot for Tom for our upcoming anniversary.
It was a quiet afternoon at PaintAway, so we had the place all to ourselves.
When we were finished, we left our “masterpieces” at PaintAway to be fired.
(We also left a godawful mess.)
Fast forward a week or so and… voila!
When the kids were young I loved to make Christmas tree ornaments with their photos.
Sometimes the ornaments were store bought and I just inserted a photo from the previous year:
And sometimes they were handmade, either by the kids (a Brownie or school activity) or by me, with materials like baby food jar lids and lace remnants:
The last time I made ornaments like these was in 1994, but when the Target Dollar Store had little frame ornaments last week, I couldn’t resist!
I had no choice but to add their names and the year because really, it’s been so long that there just seems to be no consistency or similarity!
I think maybe I’ll do this again in 2019! Think their kids would help me?
Käthe awoke from a deep slumber this afternoon when a package arrived with her name on it.
No really, it’s true!
The package was from my aunt Ulli who recently visited us, and who has a Käthe Kruse doll herself that she was given for Christmas when she was a little girl of six, in Chemnitz, Germany.
Käthe was beside herself with excitement and proceeded to rip into the package.
“Slow down there, young lady!” I suggested. “Your present isn’t going anywhere!” But there was no stopping her. Käthe knew that any package from Ulli would surely contain…
…yes! A quilt! Käthe’s very own quilt, handmade by Aunt Ulli! Before we knew it, Käthe had wrapped herself in the beautiful quilt made just for her.
“Can you see me now?”
“Hey, there’s something written on this inside! Can you please read this to me?” (Such good German manners.)
“It’s made just for ME!” Käthe exclaimed excitedly. “Thank you, Ulli!” She repeated it over and over again.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
And then, Käthe spent the afternoon playing with her beautiful new quilt.
Of course the first thing she did was make a fort. (Kid plus blanket always equals fort!)
And then there was some Hide-and-Seek…
And some hanging out with friends…
And then Käthe insisted on introducing her new Ulli quilt to our Ulli quilt. It was a touching moment of deep quiltness.
Quilt love permeated the household all afternoon…
…until Käthe got sleepy and asked, “If I sit with my new quilt at the piano, will someone play me a lullaby?”
And before we knew it, Käthe was wrapped cozily in her beautiful new Ulli quilt…
…and fell fast asleep. And if no one’s woken her…
…that’s where she is still, sleeping soundly after the most exciting day she’s had in a very long time.
Last week, when Marco came to visit Seattle, he brought us a beautiful bedspread from India.
As you know, we use German bedding consisting of individual duvets, so one big bedspread won’t work on our bed. Still, I absolutely love this fabric and was determined to turn it into duvet covers for our bed.
So I got to work.
First stop: Target, to buy a new sewing machine.
I’ve had my old machine for about 25 years and it used to frustrate the hell out of me so I knew it was time for a new one.
Next stop: the fabric store to buy coordinated backing fabric.
Bailey was no help at all!
I measured once, measured twice, and measured again. Then, scared to take scissors to the beautiful fabric, I procrastinated with Kat and went to the fabric store because she decided she wants to learn to sew now too! :-)
The Mountain was OUT!
When we got home it could no longer be avoided; I HAD to cut!
I’m not gonna divulge whether I made any significant cutting or sewing mistakes. Just suffice it to say that if Tom and I ever start the German bedding company we keep talking about, I’ll be doing sales and marketing… not sewing!
Eventually it was time to stuff our duvets into the new “sleeve.” (Hint: it’s easier to do this if the sleeve is inside out!)
Fluffy, eh?
Time for a mojito break – with mint form our yard! (Thanks Tom!)
And finally, the finished products!
What do you think? This is look #7 (the other six can be seen here) – and I think it’s my favorite! Thanks so much, Marco and Ayesha! I hope you don’t mind that I cut up your beautiful gift, but I just had to!
As we disembarked from the Kingston-Edmonds ferry late this afternoon, Elisabeth commented that an entire book could have been written about today. She’s right but, for now at least, a simple post will have to do.
My dearest friend from my happiest years arrived in Seattle this weekend from San Diego, where our families shared a back fence and a deep friendship. We stopped sharing a fence 15 years ago, but but our friendship is timeless and when we see each other it’s as if we’d never been apart. Lisa and I had children within months – and in some cases, within days – of each other and as young stay-at-home moms, we probably spent more time with each other and our kids than with our spouses. Moving away was excruciating for all of us, but I knew we’d keep in touch – and we have.
Lisa, her husband Paul and their daughter Lauren, who is Elisabeth’s age, came to Seattle this weekend for a family wedding, so of course we had to see them. Unfortunately, their two sons, one of whom is a year older than Elisabeth and one of whom is a week younger than Kat and Aleks (and back then they might as well have been triplets) stayed home in San Diego.
But Kat, Elisabeth and I decided to get on a ferry and visit Lisa, Paul and Lauren at Paul’s mother’s house in Kingston.
Getting on the ferry in Edmonds is far easier and more relaxing than getting on a ferry in Seattle! We easily found parking and walked onto the ferry (because driving on is almost $30!).
On board, we did the requisite mother-daughters goofing off stuff. First stop, espresso bar.
We all had to do a double-take. What? “Express bar”? This is Seattle, so that’s just weird! We need coffee, and fast!
I snapped pictures… but Kat took photographs.
Them’s my happy daughters!
Dooce and his owner did some over-the-railing flirting…
They have this gig down! Charming dudes.
It was wonderful to see Lisa and Lauren again and girly connections were instantly rekindled.
We spent hours catching up. We could have spent days catching up. Weeks, maybe. God, I miss them!
Lisa and her family have had adventurous lives over the past twenty years and novels could be written. In fact, novels should be written. In fact… if only I had time and if only my creative juices would flow again, I’d write their story. It’s bigger than a blog post… or ten… or a hundred. Yes, it’s definitely a novel! Maybe someday.
The other book that needs to be written is the book about Paul’s sister, Cynthia. Now there is a truly phenomenal story.
Cynthia makes quilts – the most amazingly beautiful, artistic, genius quilts – each with a heartfelt story behind it. This is a quilt called “My Mother’s Wings” that Cynthia made for her mother:
I didn’t get a close-up of this quilt, but the stitching is incredible! On the back, Cynthia describes the meaning behind each aspect of the circular patterns in the quilt:
“I started playing with circles,” she says. “A half-circle forms the letter C, the first letter of my name. If you put two C’s together, they form as S, the first letter of my mom’s name, Shirley. This shape also resembles a wing. Two large wings represent my mother and my father. Five medium wings represent their five children. Fifteen small wings represent their grandchildren. The background is composed of ten arcs, each with five fabrics used twice, representing the five children and their spouses. The ribbon forming the border represents the love that, while binding our family together, confines neither the wings nor the family members.”
Every one of Cynthia’s quilts has a story behind it. There are many quilts and many stories.
Look at the detail!
And then there are these quilts. Oh. My. God.
Look at the detail!
And see these ferns? They’re made using actual ferns laid on fabric in sunlight!
This quilt is called “A Horse of a Different Color.” It is sheer genius, I swear.
Look at this flowing mane, intricately quilted!
This fanciful quilt even has “windows” in it – windows with a fairy dust sheen…
And this quilt absolutely blew me away:
See the bird’s wings? All hand stitches – individual hand stitches!
Can you imagine my awe, looking at these quilts that Cynthia made? We were mesmerized.
When I was beyond speechless, (OK, that actually never happens, but it was close) this quilt came out:
No, Cynthia didn’t sketch those horses. She STITCHED them! No kidding. Look!
Exquisite!
And now I’d like to introduce you to Cynthia.
The hands that made these astoundingly beautiful and intricately detailed quilts have been ravaged by severe rheumatoid arthritis.
In addition, Cynthia is totally deaf, a side-effect of her disease. She can’t hear anything, but she can talk – and she tells beautiful stories about the inspiration behind each of her creations.
Eventually we had to say goodbye to Lisa and her extended family and get back on the ferry, back to present-day life.
In the ferry terminal in Edmonds, we noticed that a window had been broken, creating a beautiful quilt-like pattern in the shattered glass. I took it as a sign.
It’s a sign that creativity must find its way back into my own life.
I need to find the time again, amid all the craziness and non-creativity of my job, to express myself creatively again.
