Another Baby Quilt

While up in Canada this past week I finished up another baby quilt I was working on, for the son of the fellow who was our caretaker for many years. He is the same age as my son, and they played together as kids when we would go up to Canada. Kevin's little boy Keaton is 7 months old and I've been wanting to get this quilt to him. This was a challenge, made from odds and ends and scraps as so much of my fabric was away in storage. The cat in the middle is a single piece of printed fabric, and it seemed appropriate since Kevin and his wife are fond of their cats. I just needed to find other fabrics in the right colors that I could use to expand upon the central cat. I was pretty lucky in finding scraps that incorporated the right colors, though the quilt still wound up a good bit smaller than the one I made for my grandson.

But I did get it finished while I was up there, and left it with Kevin's mom to get to him.

Memory Lane

When I was cleaning out my attic a few weeks ago I came across this watercolor I painted 30 years ago for my son, when he was small. What a shame it had a pad or something sitting on it and the paper got unevenly colored, as it would be fun to have it reframed for my little grandson!

Rosaries

Today my son converted to Roman Catholicism. It was a very moving service, but as a lifelong Congregationalist I was hardly sure what the proper etiquette is to celebrate an adult's conversion to Catholicism. Clearly here's where google is your friend and you can find the answer to almost anything, including appropriate gifts! The Big Three seemed to be crucifixes, Catholic Bibles, and rosaries. My Congregational blood balked a bit at the crucifix idea. A Catholic Bible would surely have been a possibility, specially to a reader like me - but at the 11th hour I realized I had no clue where to purchase one. But a rosary? Heck, that was something I could make myself from my supply of beads. And google, of course, is more than helpful in telling you HOW to make a rosary.

Of course the formal rosaries all have a medal of some sort on them, and rosary medals are not the sort of thing my art and craft supplies contain. But never fear, various google sites told me that for a beaded rosary a larger and/or different sort of bead could be used in place of the medal, and beads were something I had. So I set about making rosaries! Actually I made several, but finally ended up deciding I liked this one the best, so this is the one I gave to my son.

But I still have two others I made that I think are perfectly nice. And to top things off, using shorter pieces of the wiring I had leftover, I also made two Anglican rosaries. I quite enjoy doing them. I still adore my pastels, but making prayer beads is quite satisfying as well. These are the two other Catholic rosaries I made as well as the Anglican ones.

Prayer Beads

Another non-pastel art entry tonight. :-) But last year I did take a workshop on creating prayer and meditation beads, and it was a rather fun and even soothing experience. Enough so that I even went out and bought some beading supplies. But last night I decided to try to actually use the supplies. I did have a bit of a struggle but in the end I think my efforts turned out pretty well.

Finished Quilt

Saturday was the baby shower for my daughter-in-law Wendy. We had a lovely day for it and all worked out nicely. I had to work hard to get my quilt finished in time, and only finished it up at 8 AM the morning of the shower! But here it is, all finally quilted and ready to go.

Wendy's mom also made a quilt for the baby, very different in style but totally charming. I loved that she had had three little appliqued animals on it representing Brock, Wendy, and the baby - based on the animals representing their birth years in the Chinese Zodiac - Brock as a Horse, Wendy as a Sheep, and the baby as an Ox. What a great idea to celebrate half of his cultural heritage.

So as an extra bonus, here is the quilt Wendy's mom made also.

Nature Notes 3

My crocuses are all gone, but daffodils are coming out in the neighborhood in profusion. I first thought a daffodil painting would be perfect for this week's entry for Michelle's Nature Notes.

But as I was entering the basement door after walking my dog I noticed these tiny, delicate little purple flowers growing along the edge of the concrete step. They were so tiny - the plant barely two inches high, and the flowers no more than a half inch across. But they were so pretty - and so suddenly *there* out of nowhere, a much more subtle sign of spring that the riotous daffs. Everyone sees the daffodils. But no would ever bother to notice these tiny little flowers growing against my steps - so they became this week's choice, though I just about had to get down on my belly to get a photo of them to use as a reference. :-)

Nature Notes 2

Okay, I admit I could never get myself tied down by things like 'Watery Wednesday' or 'Sunday Scenery'. That's far too organized for me. I like to keep things as loose and freeform as possible, both in art and in life. It would be torture to me to try to stick to certain themes, especially on certain days of the week. I'm not much of one for memes in general. But I do like my friend Michelle's 'Nature Notes' since it ties in so nicely with this burgeoning time of year, and I do love keeping an eye on nature and seeing what Mother Nature is up to.

So I took about 40 minutes to document more of what nature is up to this week. The crocuses in the back yard are in bloom (the ones in the sunless front yard have not even showed their heads yet). My crocuses are mostly purple, though I have a few mysterious white ones in the yard also - mysterious as I never planted any white ones, and they are growing in a spot where I would never have planted anyway! But the purple ones are looking brave and colorful, even while the ground around them is still mostly brown and bare. So these are my Nature Notes for this week. Done on 9x12 Art Spectrum.