Warren Buffett

Handmade Gifts

My friend Brooke was sweet enough to pose for me on this. Isn't she beautiful? The context of this painting was a young newlywed woman who receives a beautiful, handmade, crocheted blanket from an elderly friend as a wedding gift. It goes on to extoll the virtues of handmade gifts, with which I wholeheartedly agree.

The neat thing about it was how I got to go visit two elderly ladies in my ward in order to find a model. The first had just lost her husband, and even though she didn't want her hands photographed, I did get to talk to her for about an hour about her husband and things past and sacred. The second woman is she whose hands I painted--Josephine. She crocheted a beautiful dress for Brooke before she was born.

The blanket I used was actually given to me by an elderly friend, Daisy Peters, when I was married. She has since died, so I wasn't able to use her as a model, but Josephine was kind enough to repair some loose yarn pieces where the blanket was coming undone. So, I not only got to visit several sweet sisters, and paint a nice painting, but I also have my blanket fixed, so I can use it again and remember my friend Daisy.