Sweater colours and moon-faced girls

I was painting this canvas the other day and thinking about its start.  My daughter was a toddler and had been given a gorgeous sweater as a hand-me-down. She used to get the best hand-me-downs. I loved the colours of this sweater so much that I kept squishing her into it after it was getting a little tight and the seasons had changed.  We’ve all done that right? “No, no, it’s all good, it still fits, almost there, think small.”

I can picture her in the sweater.  Two or three, with a beautiful round face and skin that glowed like the moon.  When she was just very little a friend in fact said she had a moon face, and that was both meant and taken as a compliment, and true.

I had to give up trying to get the sweater on her eventually.  Of course.  Even before she’d truly grown out of it, it had a very small neck opening and she would grumble/growl/screech when I tried to get it over her head.

When I faced the fact that it was over, this gorgeous sweater and I would no longer have the chance to hang out together, I pulled out my wool cards and went through matching up the colours to Appleton wool. And when the ideas of winter umbrellas came into my head the cooler colours seemed a good match.  I still love them.  A bit of a quirky palette, both calming and bright, and memories of when my fabulous teenager was my moon-faced baby girl.