Friday, August 07, 2009

A Book for my mother's 70th Birthday


(Above: Cover of the Birthday Book. Embroidery by my sister, the talented Wanda Lenz. Click on image to enlarge.)

Last December my mother, Linda Lee Lenz (who never writes on her blog!), turned seventy. For this occasion, my sister Wanda stitched an amazing piece. I was suppose to frame it as my contribution to the gift. Okay, okay....we were both behind schedule but our delay was serendipitous. In the meantime, my mother received an assortment of things from her Aunt Janet including a small stack of original artwork signed Janet Slone, her maiden name. My mother decided she really wanted the embroidery to be a cover to a book with these works inside. This presented several problems. The art varied in size, some of which were longer that the sides of the stitchery. A forty-five degree turn made the stitching a diamond and solved this issue. The other problem.....WHITE! I swear I'll never make another white book cover ever again but it was the best choice for this special gift. Yesterday I finished the binding and made a video! The book is now in the hands of FedEx and on its owner in Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania. Happy belated birthday mom!

2 comments:

lindacreates said...

The book is beautiful. Wanda's stitching is absolutely amazing. I know your mother will be thrilled.

Wanda said...

You are AMAZING!!! I've always said that my work looks like a million dollars but when you frame or finish the piece, it's 3 million!!!! I'm going right now to look at the video!!! Yeah...we were late. We were late for the Chess board for Dad's 70th too but...that's okay. It's SO WORTH IT!!!!!