Wonky Blossoms - Inspired by Leslie!

I wanted to do a post to thank Leslie whose work inspired me to make these "Wonky Blossoms" for the newborn twin girls of a friend here in the US. Until recently (ie tonight!) I hadn't managed to stumble upon the source and now I would like to link back to Leslie's '

blog . I really enjoyed making these.

As the mother of twins I was trying to give something unique but not too 'precious". We are drowning here in a sea of outgrown clothes, toys and baby gear. I didn't want to give something that would become clutter.

Her delight and appreciation for the gift of the Wonky Blossoms was well worth the time it took to stitch them. It took a little while to select the fabrics and do the embroidery. I wasn't able to assemble the blossoms as neatly as I would have liked. Having 3 year old twins at the time meant this was a project I had to adjust to doing in little snatches of time.

My friend, the mother of these babies, is someone to whom I was instantly drawn when I first met her in Singapore. She is a genuinely sweet person. At that time I was engaged and she, well, was with someone that wasn't good enough only she didn't seem to see that. For a time we all shared a house in Holland Village. We were thrilled when she kicked Mr Wrong to the curb, and ended up with Mr Right.

We were stoked when we were able to visit them and their 2 children in Texas in 2005. Very excited when they moved closer to us- PA. And stunned when she told us that she was unexpectedly expecting twins...girls at that. If 10 years ago anyone had suggested that I would be living in the USA not too far from this friend I would have scoffed at such an unlikely scenario as nice as the idea may have been. That we would both have a set of twin girls, there would have been beverages exiting from my nostrils.

Life has proven to me to be so full of the totally unexpected that when I try to guess what our future holds, I try to now deliberately think of the most far fetched thing I can. And yet everything is a consequence of some conscious decision, and the future is probably written in front of us but we don't have our reading glasses on. Who wrote that...oh I think I just did LOL.

I woke this morning convinced I should run to delete the cat post. After rereading it I was actually happy I had written it down (apart from the typos). There were lots of things that that had started to fade from my memory. I can't say it was all pleasant recalling the emotions that went along but I hadn't intended to chronicle my life from that perspective when I tried to simply tried to explain why Tinkerbell is our cat. There is a shorter answer of course.

The excercise raised questions that I can ask of my mother whilst I still can. I will go on to finish the cat story soon. I have debated with myself how much of the Ugly I should leave out but I think I needed to acknowledge it because otherwise it isn't going to be the whole picture. I don't think I have a gift for creating fiction, and I didn't come here to be constantly checking myself. I really don't want to be bitter, twisted and boring either, just honest. I won't say that I had it bad, but it wasn't good. Eventually it all exploded. This is also something that informs my views on mothering, on parenting, on families and on my own motivations, strengths and many weaknesses.

Cheers