Maddie and Aunt Misty

Yesterday was Mother's Day. I am not a mother, but I am so grateful that my own mother has always been such a good friend, and such a tremendous supporter of all my handcraft talents and abilities. She can make anything, and is such a gracious hostess and good cook that Martha Stewart should be ashamed. I spent the weekend with her and greatly appreciate the fact that she now lives less than 2 hours away, driving time, whereas she had previously lived in Maine; as I live in California this didn't exactly allow for frequent visits until now.

While I'm not a mother, I am an aunt and had great joy in spending part of the day with my 20-month old niece when my brother and sister in law stopped by for a while. That's me and Maddie in the 1st picture, and Maddie with my Mom in the background of pictures 2 and 3. Maddie is holding some of my knitting needles (knitting attached - subject of a future blog) to fulfill the duty of a knitter to put knitting needles in a baby's hands; folklore states that if the child holds them then she/he will become a knitter also. I actually did this many, many months ago but before I had a camera of my own. My brother did take pictures for me but was clearly quite puzzled by this bit of feminine folkloric wisdom and I was never able to get one of the pictures out of him. I think this also points out the downside of digital cameras. It is possible to take such a huge number of pictures so easily that finding them again later on is too huge a task for human endurance.

Maddie is on the tiny side for her age (I was too until I turned 40, and then I became all too typical for my age) so everything I've made for her so far has taken her a long time to grow into. I planned ahead for this visit an took along a tape measure to get some critical measurements, figuring that she would either think that measuring was a really fun game or start screaming like a banshee after one attempt and that would be the end of it. Mercifully for all, she was deeply intrigued by the tape measure and it's ability to go in and out (fortunately the rewind button didn't make the tape zip back in too vigorously and scare her too badly). I got all the measurements I could think of taking, so maybe I can finally make something for her that she can wear in the season for which it was intended.

My plan is to make her as many things as I possibly can, both knitted and sewn, that will allow my thousands of ideas to blossom while she's still not fully expressing her own taste in clothing. I can continue to indulge in wild flights of lavishly girly flourishes and furbelows until that dreaded day when she decides for herself what she really wants to wear. I fear that once she hits the age where she has definite likes and dislikes about her clothing that she is going to opt for distressingly plain store bought items, and will disdain my handcrafted treasures. I am attempting to be resigned to this fate, but will do my best to honour her choices when the time comes. In the meantime, I better get started on the cardigan with the adorable ceramic cat-face buttons........