Finished "Japanese Lanterns"

I finished the Japanese-lantern inspired quilt today:



This is one of those cases where I'm more pleased with how it came out than I thought it would be. I thought the different colors and designs might fight with each other but they actually do work, and the result does kind of glow.

I think it works because most of the fabrics I used had a slightly greyed-down chroma to them - they weren't really pure hues of their colors. (Color is made up of hue, chroma, and value - at least if you're talking about how you determine the color of a soil. Hue is the absolute color, chroma is how bright or grey, and value is how light or dark - there is something called a Munsell chart you use to determine hue, value, and chroma).

Here's a close up. I took the photos of the quilt on the ground because I knew it was too large to hang up, and anyway it's kind of windy today and I didn't fancy standing around for a long time waiting for it to be still enough so the quilt would hang straight.



I already have a backing planned for this one. I think I'm going to  have it longarm quilted, either  a floral design or if the quilter has some kind of "Asian inspired" design that might work.

The pattern is from the May/June issue of McCall's Quilting and was designed by Susan Guzman.

***
And a happy Mother's day to all the mothers. (Well, I guess in the UK, "Mothering Sunday" - their version - was a month ago?)

I called my mom. I had got her a larger gift - she had been wanting one of those gel anti-fatigue mats like chefs use for a while, so I ordered one for her. It was more expensive than I had planned but I had kind of mentally committed to getting it before they told me the price. So anyway. But she liked it - she still makes all their bread and standing on a tiled floor for 10 or more minutes to knead isn't as nice as standing on a softer mat. And it's moveable, so if she ever has a task elsewhere in the house that will require long standing, she can move it there.

They gave red carnations to all the women at church today. (They had more carnations than mothers, so we all got them). I sometimes feel a little weird accepting the flower as I'm not literally a mother, though in the past several of the other women told me, "But you're almost like a mother to some of the Youth Group kids." Well, maybe. In the days when we had the big teen Youth Group, there were a few kids who came from slightly difficult family situations, and my co-leader and I did our best to model the way an adult woman SHOULD treat a teen kid.

I'm not involved with Youth Group any more; the teens we had all either graduated or moved on, and we have mostly small kids now. There are more women willing to work with the small kids, and I know I'm better working with teens, so I leave the youth group to them now.

The minister talked about (among other things) how we all (and I think he included the men in it too) had the ability to nurture and to be like a mama bear to others. (He used the image of the mama bear, who will pick up her cubs gently in her mouth to move them to a new den, but who will fight to the death anyone who gets between her and her cubs. He didn't add, though I would, that she periodically will cuff her cubs' ears when they need it).

I don't know. I haven't felt lately like I had the chance to nurture and that may be part of my distress this spring. Most of the "nurturing" I got to show people was of the tough love variety, rather than the cheering-on during success or the "I'm so proud of you" variety. Or even of the "I know you're sad and I'll just sit here and listen to you while you talk" variety. That can be exhausting to do but it can also be fairly fulfilling. And while tough love is important, it's not as fun as those other forms of nurturing, and often those you are using it on resent you for it, at least in the moment.

(I was one of those kids who was actually more afraid of disappointing her parents than making them angry, so I mostly avoiding having tough love dealt to me while growing up. Actually, from a fairly early age, I got pretty good at practicing it on myself....maybe a little too good sometimes)