Like mother, like daughter

In honor of Mother's Day, I thought I'd share some pictures and stories about my mom, Joanne, who - as you'll see - has been one of my main sources of inspiration. I finished my latest mom-inspired project today: a late birthday present for my good friend's daughter, Sofia. It's a toss pillow with an applique from a picture of a mermaid that she drew us on a Christmas thank you note.

Here's a picture of both the applique and original drawing - I'm going to start offering custom appliques from your child's or your own artwork in the shop. And here's where the idea came from...

The school bag that Mom made from my drawing! She must have made when she was about my age, before I headed off for my first day of kindergartern. It's appliqued in ripstop nylon (she was making a lot of nylon windsocks then) and is even monogrammed on the other side, in what I think was my childhood writing. It has been so well used and loved!

The bag inspired my recent Marigolds Mini-break Bag. Although they are constructed a bit differently, the shape and materials are the same.

This quilt is the largest project mom worked on for me. It has 12 embroidered squares (some of the embroidery designs were from her grandma's collection, as I remember) and lots of vintage fabrics, some of which I have little pieces of in my collection (I had fun looking for them as I photographed this today).

A recent project was this cross-stitch for my wedding. Neither my mom nor I knew that we were both working on cross-stitch projects for the other! She opened mine - a mountain cabin scene in a Scandinavian style - at the rehearsal dinner, and she said all she could think was, wait, this is what I'm making for you! I love that so much of it is self-designed, like the waves and little marine animals on the bottom.


There are lots more that I don't have good pictures of, like a tailored, butter-soft black wool coat that got me through my first northeast winter, a few clothing items that she designed back in the 70's that I wore for college functions, and other masterpieces that I haven't been able to get my hands on (like her ceramic works, especially a village of ceramic houses, including mill and covered bridge - I'll try to remember to snap some pictures next time I'm in Corvallis).

Lessons

The Notes from my nest blog (which will hopefully be featuring Cascade Lemonade in the next couple of weeks) is having a Mother's Day bash (lots of great prizes and links!) around the question 'what did you learn after becoming a mother that you didn't know before?' Well, of course there are lots of answers to that question, but one of them is that I feel like I understand and respect my own mom, and all mothers - and fathers, for that matter - more now that I realize the responsibility, time, amazement, happiness, worry, sadness, and love that comes with becoming a parent. Thanks, Momma Jo!