After Aubrey was born, my good friend, Tracey, gave me a truly thoughtful and meaningful gift that she had been planning for months. I opened the sweet wrapping paper to find a very personal small set of handmade pottery (plate and cup) with Aubrey's name and birthdate hand painted sweetly on both. She explained that, growing up, she had been given her own personal set of china that she used every year on her birthday. A special tradition that she remembered with fondness and wanted to pass on to my daughter. And while she couldn't find a place that made personalized child-sized china, she tracked down a woman who makes and personalizes small pottery (http://www.coloradoriverpottery.com/child/index.htm). It was then that I realized why the gift had been late. The birthdate, the name... of course they had to be definite before she could finish the gift.
So when Tracey got pregnant with her own baby girl, I struggled to come up with a gift just as thoughtful. How could I top such a meaningful gift? I was silly to have overlooked the one talent that would truly be appreciated. And so it came to me. I would make a quilt. A handcrafted, straight from the heart gift. Little did I know the heartache and frustration it would bring me to create. But in the end I was able to see that my perfectionistic attitude was keeping me from seeing the true beauty of what I created. When I saw the look on Tracey's face when she opened it and received the hug of appreciation, I knew I had chosen the perfect gift.
The pictures don't do the colors justice. Tracey chose a combination of colors after I offered up the pattern as my template and they are a beautiful combination, much lighter and softer than the photo portrays.
1 comment:
Beautiful!
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