nanke's stuff

We were in Nashville to celebrate our little grandson's second birthday.  It was so much fun to be with him, our son Ben, and our daughter (in-law), Sarah.  CC (our grandson) is talking and gets more interesting everyday.  He declared in no uncertain terms "I wuv birthdays!", and who can blame him?  Neighborhood children came over to play almost everyday we were there, (all considerably older than CC), and they treat him kindly and with generosity.  The food was great, the company was great, the dog (Monkey), was pretty good .... she has a habit of running off.  She's the only dog I've ever known who can do some sort of flexing of her body and maneuver her way out of a harness (that's as tight as it can be without cutting off her circulation).  She does it in a nano-second, and then off she goes to "visit" someone in the neighborhood.  We started working with her using treats, but it's slow going.  I do dearly love her, though.

I've done no art since before we left, so I thought I'd share 2 things I did in my journal 2 years ago.  The first one is a collage I did when Sarah was pregnant and we were so excited about the new grandbaby, and the second one is a rather quick pencil drawing I did of him when he was just a few hours old.   As you can tell by the note on that one, it's version 2 - I really didn't like version 1 at all, so I did it again.   It's fun for me to look back on that time and remember how excited we were!

Well, I got some really cute pictures of CC in his costume from his dad, Ben (our son), and because I'm a bit squeemish about posting CC's picture on the internet, I'm posting one where you can see part, but not all of him.  Even though you can't see his face in this picture, I think he looks just like a Gnome happened upon by a giant (the giant being Ben in his "early 1900s" costume).  So, without further adieu, here they are!

When my sons were little, Halloween was a really big deal at our house. I made all their costumes (until they were older and wanted to put their own costumes together). We had pirates, bumble bees, lions, aliens, wizards .... well, all sorts of things (one year one of them was a bag of candy!). So now I'm a grandmother, and my grandson is 18 months old, so I'm making his second costume. This year his parents decided he should be a garden gnome. I started making it yesterday and I decided that I would make the "fur" boots first. I thought they might be the most complicated part of the costume. Today I finished them. They were a bit tricky, but I think they turned out just fine. The big thing will be if they fit him. I'm in Michigan, and they live in Tennessee. Even though I have all his measurements, it's always better to be able to try things on before the final stitching is done.
I thought I'd just post some pictures as I go along just to keep up with things. Besides the boots, I will make pants, a shirt, belt, hat, and a little drawstring bag to hang on the belt. I think I should put some of those chocolate candies in the bag that look like gold coins ... what do you think? He will also need a beard, which I may or may not make. The beard has become the biggest challenge, but I'll figure something out. So, here are the boots!