Art Work

When I had lunch with Marilyn we exchanged Christmas gifts. We had not been able to get together earlier with her treatments, my work schedule and my bout with bronchitis. Marilyn is an artist..... she draws, paints and works in mixed media.

Her gift to me was this wonderful Folk Art Snowman mixed media picture. It was matted, framed and ready to put on the wall. He is so cute and just the kind of thing Marilyn is so good at.



I tried to take a picture off center so that you could see the dimension. Beads, twigs, and even an orange toothpick for his nose. My gift to her was a bracelet, the flat spiral that took our bead group by storm during the holidays.


While I was cleaning today I dusted another picture that hangs in the guest bedroom. This one was made by my Mom several years before her death. She was in the nursing home for 12 years before she died in November 1994 and this was made before she went to the nursing home. The flowers are made of tiny sea shells that she collected on vacation in FL. I have another picture that is more a display of the different shells, not at all like this one, it is nice, but this is my favorite.

My Mom was a very talented crocheter too. She made dozens of the large round pineapple table cloths when I was very young. She also crocheted dresses for the small fashion dolls that are becoming popular again. I remember she and my grandmother would share patterns for the dresses.

I lived for over a year with my grandmother when I was six, while my parents built our house at the lake. Grandma was the one that taught me to crochet while I lived with her. She also taught me to read patterns and I think that was the most valuable part of the lessons. I have been able to read and create any crochet pattern that I found interesting, I even subscribed to a french crochet magazine in the 80's and followed the patterns from charts without translating the text.
All of this makes me a very poor student in quilt classes, I would much rather buy a book or pattern and learn the technique that way. I think it also makes me a good teacher since I love to draw patterns and write good clear instructions.