Still here. We're all surviving summer. How 'bout you?
The tomatoes on the balcony are growing in like grapes. The kids are turning golden tan and growing, growing ~ so fast (I wonder if there's something in the pool water?) Mia is a babbling wonder ~ she talks a mile a minute and I can only make out a few words here and there ~ but her sweet little voice is like music to our ears. Oh, and she's recently started pouting. She is so funny, that girl. As for me, I've just got some snippets of life to prove that we're still here... and I promise to see you soon.
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So, last week the lovely and talented miss Messe Jesse invited me to participate in the Around the World blog hop and I was so tickled I said yes. Go peek here to see Jessie's blog hop stop and you can track back to Helen Philipps (she invited Jessie) and so on and so on. The blog hop is quite simple: answer a few questions and invite three more people to join in.
Well, if you look back at the other posts, they're all quite lovely and picturesque. Unfortunately, I'm blazing forward on a very ambitious work schedule right now, so I'm just going to anwer the questions and invite three more bloggers (who will surely do a much prettier job than I have!)
1. What am I working on?
Well, I wish I could tell you. Everything is so hush-hush, it's killing me, but my work this summer has involved something I'll get to share with you soon. And then there is a lot of fun magazine work that I'll be excited to show you as it comes out in print. And lastly, there's the work that is no work at all ~ it's my happy time sewing ~ working on hexagon or six-point star paper piecing. I've always got some of that going. I hope to be back to blogging regularly soon and showing you projects that I've made just for fun. (But do we call that work?!?)
2. How does my work differ from other's of its genre?
My work is an extension of me and we are all one of a kind, right? (My husband would say thank goodness for that!) I really enjoy hand-stitching, so there's quite a lot of that in my sewing and I definitely love working with linen. I adore the work coming out of Japan and try to capture that charm with a touch of modern.
3. Why do I write/create what I do?
Like any artist will tell you, I create because I must. Plus I have a huge (and growing) stash of fabrics and notions and trims ~ they are so much fun to play with. When I get in the zone, the entire house could be burning down around me and I'd still be sitting there happily stitching away. What? Fire?
4. How does my writing/creative process work?
I was a writer before a blogger so I do enjoy the written word, but I'm much more in love with the visual side of blogging and sewing. I like blogs for the pictures. The cruelest thing is that I find it insanely hard to take good pictures of my own work. I never think my pictures do my work any justice, so I keep telling myself I probably need a better camera ;) In sewing, my creative process is always the same. I'll see a detail in something that I like and then it grows into a big idea in my head. I jump right into the project, then I get halfway thru and start squinting and staring and wondering if it's any good at all. That's the crippling self-doubt I've talked about before. I very rarely finish a project having loved it all the way through. So I'm always moving on to the next project, chasing the perfect "make."
Now I'd like to pass on the torch to my friends Kristyne of Pretty by Hand, Ayumi of Pink Penguin, and Lori Holt of Bee In My Bonnet... I'd love love to hear more about your creative processes. I'm so sorry I did the short version here, Jessie, but if anyone would like to use the "Around the World" blog hop banner I made, you're more than welcome!
xo amy