Beginning by the Sea

Jim, Jack and I are down the Ocean again this weekend and are staying in my parents' condominium and closing it up for the Winter.

They bought this beach place over 13 years ago and this is where my family comes to spend many days in the Summer. It's also where my family chose to come two Summers ago to celebrate my Mom's 70th birthday and my parent's 50th wedding anniversary. And even though my Mom passed away eight months after that celebration, her spirit is everywhere down here.

Her beach house, her treasures, her pictures of her grandchildren everywhere. This is the view from the front door.

It faces the Bay side and frames the flower box that my father made for my Mom quite nicely. And it makes me happy to continue to tend her flower boxes on her porch.

Here's another shot of the view from the Bay side of the condo where you can just get a glimpse of the water...


Here's the view from the opposite side looking out over a canal where the boats are parked. This is also the sea side and if there weren't a ton of other buildings in the way, you could glimpse the beach.


We love it down here. And right now we're taking the time to relax and wind down our Summer...and I'm just getting started on my August bead journal piece.

The title for my August piece is A Daughter's Valentine. It was first inspired in March when I was visiting my parents' home in Naples, Florida, also near the beach. Since then, I've been slowly organizing the treasures I would need to stitch my valentine. I also decided to pull out that palette of colors I created from my trip to the Statue of Liberty.


I know some of you guessed that I would be using that in a future project...and you were right...

August has always been my Mom's month to me...because often we're at the beach (a place she loved) and we've always celebrated her birthday and anniversary at this time. And so, I begin with treasures from the sea...these green limpets whose shell interior is that beautiful aqua color my Mom loved so much...


And this clay colored ribbon she bought when she took me on a shopping trip to the Garment District in NYC for my birthday.


She loved the rows and rows of ribbons at Mokuba and bought this one because it was the exact color she wanted to paint her walls in her family room at home. When I was going through her things, I found it and decided to use it on this piece...

I also found these abalone shells that she collected, thinking that one day she would stitch them to a sheer curtain and hang them in a sunny window.


She never did use them for that; but I remember telling her how thrilled I was with the holes and I could just see beautiful ribbon flowers and jewels nestled in the curve of the shell -- and I could sew through the holes -- Oh, how her eyes danced when she thought of that idea. So, I set those aside too...

And I have to include some aquamarine...for it was her very favorite gemstone because it matched her eyes.

And so, here I sit...infused with her spirit, resting in the space that she so lovingly created, smelling the sea and beginning...

Beginning to piece it all together into something beautiful. Something I know she will love.

The first stitch is the hardest, right? I best get started...