Handprints

I

have

wanted

to

do

this

project

for

a

while

now...

and

there

is

no

time

like

the

present.

There is something incredibly precious about little hands and little feet. I have wanted to document our children's' hands for some time now but did not want to do the traditional print in plaster. I also wanted to be able to show them how tiny they were in both the relation to each other and to us, their parents. We had fun doing simple paper outlines and had to rework them a few times to get them to nestle inside of one another. Then Wren picked out the embroidery colors for each of us, and an extra one for little brother or sister who is on the way. We stitched our outlines on to a hemp burlap and left the cloth in a painted embroidery hoop. The children liked to watch me stitch this up before bedtime- it was the same effect as knitting for them, calming and interesting to watch all at the same time. We will place the other little hand inside of Dane's sometime this Spring and then it will be complete. I have been using my 1960's sewing machine a little more as of late, but still find the method of hand stitching to be more soothing to the hands.