World wide blog hop

Several weeks ago Regina Dunn invited me to participate in the World Wide Blog Hop. I declined because of a looming family concern. Last week Jeannie Aird invited me to participate, so this time I agreed to play along. Be sure to go and check out both of their blogs, here and here. I have to answer four questions.

#1. What am I working on?
Every day I hand stitch on two different daily projects. Every week I print and hand stitch a six inch square with a leaf for my Weekly Leaf project. I also do a hand stitched eight inch square void in either black on white or white on black. I'm also working on an 80" square that will be all black, made of assorted fabrics, machine quilted and then painted with a white circle for my circle series of quilts.

#2. How does my work differ from others of its genre?
I like simple, so the techniques and stitching I do are quite simple but sometimes appear very complex. I have been involved with surface design for about twenty years and have mastered a lot of techniques. Most of my work involves circles and leaves, and I like nothing better than to see how many different ways I can create either one of them.

#3. Why do I write/create what I do?
I am happiest when I'm creating something. I am very drawn to circles, leaves and very bold black and white images. I also have a large collection of fabrics and 'stuff' and have challenged myself to use these things  to do my daily stitching projects. I'm currently working on my 4th and 5th one, all using in stock goods and have more planned.

#4. How does my writing/creating process work?
I rarely know what a finished project will look like. For my daily stitching projects I plan ahead to the extent that I have squares ready to go all the time, sometimes I will have the whole years worth cut and ready before I start. But what I do on each of these squares is not planned, I just start stitching and see what happens. I like to see how much I can do with simple embroidery stitches, my 2013 weekly stitching use only eight different stitches on fifty-two different pieces.

The next part of this blog hop is that I have to pick another blogger to answer the same questions. I've asked my good friend Lisa Flowers Ross to be next. I am so impressed with how Lisa simplifies and abstracts images. If you are near Ketchum, ID her work is currently in a gallery there, or if you are near Auburn, NY she has two pieces in the Quilts=Art=Quilts show.