Welcome to my blog. This is a learning process for me as I am much better with a needle and thread than I am with a computer. Have patience with me.

Where to begin.

I've been working lately on a series of nature inspired drawings from my garden. I draw without shadings, using only outlines to create areas which will become "colored in" with fabric. I often use transparencies to move subjects around on a field. There are three new drawings in my sketchbook that have been worked over the last two weeks. It is my latest intent to create as many drawings as I feel I can do while my gardens are bursting with blooms and full of creatures. I will be very happy to pull them out to start the piecing process in the dead of winter.

I also work my drawings from my own photographs. I am forever taking photos of the blooms and trying to zoom in to get a butterfly or hummingbird. Lately I discovered a cache of drawings that were my Mother's. She was a watercolorist, self-taught, and her subject matter was, like mine, nature; most always, flowers. She would draw her subjects on tissue paper and then trace them with carbon paper onto her block. The paint was applied, and after she finished she would erase some of her drawn lines.

These drawings of my Mom's were a reminder of where I come from and a sweet connection to the woman from whom my love of all things artistic come. The similarities in the way we draw are many. I never really realized it before. Since this discovery, I have been very conscious of this connection to her drawing as I am sketching out my compositions. It might be fair to say that all of a sudden I have new inspiration. I wish she was still here for me to discuss this with her. I think she'd get a kick out of it. One thing I know is that she was my biggest fan and supporter. What would we all do without the love of our Mothers? Without her teaching me to sew, I'd probably have one very boring life.