Second Place

My first exposure to needlework was Crewel work at a very young age; from there I moved on to needlepoint, Blackwork, whitework, and three-dimensional embroidery, studying with Hanna Frew in Scotland.

At the EGA seminar in 1980, I stumbled upon Japanese Embroidery and that started a life-long career of learning the art to pass it on to a new generation. Luck found me on TV for 20 years and I needed to have a needlework project for 26 programs per year. That is a lot of projects! And lots of different needlework techniques.

Over the years we explored and researched every technique we could to teach to our viewers. The reason I am mentioning this is this rug is a culmination of all these techniques and projects.

Don and I started the rug together as a fun way to stitch together. He was only able to stitch some of the border before he passed away, so I tucked it in a corner for a couple of years and then pulled it out. I have worked on it, on and off, for the last ten years and, like a very good book, I am sad to see it finished; but I enjoyed working on it.