Recently I was reading some old blog posts and I saw one on four questions someone might ask you about your Creative process....

1.  What are you working on?

2.  How is it different from other people's work

3.  Why do you create?

4.  What is your creative process?

So here are my answers:

1. Right now I'm in the beginning process of the Cherrywood Fabric Graffiti Challenge.  Since I was sick it stalled a bit but this week, I've been back at it.  I do have the pattern worked out taking inspiration from a graffiti eye and adding my own lettering to it.  I have a goal to finally get this pattern done so I put my fingers on that luscious fabric.

I'm also in the middle of a deep clean of my loft dressing room which houses my fabric collection and clothes.  My husband is putting in new flooring and shelving.  We both decided to make a system where my stash is housed in bins. This project I suspect will take most of the summer but I have a good beginning!

2.  Honestly, I think the biggest difference between my work and most of my fellow artists is that I tend to take a very methodical approach to how I create.  I'm most comfortable taking a long time designing

a pattern and critiquing the composition.  Once that is complete I like to audition values and finally color.  Really after all that the construction goes quickly.  Also, I am a true Gemini.  I love, love traditional quilting complete with hand piecing and hand quilting.  I also love, love more contemporary art quilting, and am happy to try all sorts of new methods.  One thing I don't like - which most people do  - is fusing.  HATE IT and will only do it when it's truly called for.

3.  For most of my life, I've created because I had to.  There was nothing more fun.  Originally when I was a child I stitched, played flute, and wrote poetry. All of them started with the basics but I was coming up with original compositions for each endeavor.  I grew up in the country so there was plenty of time to explore all of them.  That continued through college until the day I got a quilt book by mistake in the mail.  It was a hard stop to everything else and I just pursued that.  It was never a chore and always a passion...until now.  This season of menopause, empty nesting, and covid has hit this girl hard and I'm just treading water to get through.  BUT it's only a season.  I'm old enough to know that no season lasts forever.

4.  As for my creative process...if I'm going, to be honest with myself ...I need a catalyst to get anything done.  Very few projects around here have gotten done start to finish "just because".  I need a show to enter, a class to take, a challenge to fulfill.  I'm not sure if it's because there are so many other things
that pull at the time of a full-time mother who works 40 hrs a week or just that I seem to have a short attention span.  Projects work much better though if I conceive the idea, work out the composition and pattern, do the sewing and finally quilt it.  I have never worked well on several projects at once.  They all start to get muddled and nothing gets done (which is where I'm at).  Also, even though I have tried and tried I'm pathetic trying to work in a series.  Too many ideas with whatever is shiniest capturing my attention.

These are 4 great questions.  Self-examination and self-reflection are never bad ideas.  

So What Have You Been Up to Creatively?