I love Blackbird Designs!

I've always loved the Blackbird Designs ladies.  I discovered them first when I was a quilter, back when.  Then when I moved into cross stitching, I happily discovered that they do cross stitch designs as well.  And now Alma has started a Blackbird Designs blog -- heaven!

Well needless to say, when Blackbird Designs came out with their Honeysuckle Manor book at Nashville this year, I went gaga.  In fact, I drove my LNS owner a bit crazy when my friend and I went for our Nashville stash.  "Where's the new Blackbird Designs book?"  I kept saying over and over.  I think she was ready to stuff something down my throat.  lol!  (Not really.  Tawny is very sweet and would never do such a thing.)   Anyway, I came home with the book in my eager hands, checked my floss and fabric stash and happily started stitching Margaret Harris asap.  And here's the finished result. 

Margaret Harris

from the HoneySuckle Manor book by Blackbird Designs

30ct WDW Straw linen using cross over one

called for Belle Soie silks

In case you're wondering, no, I wouldn't have chosen to use the Belle Soie silks on my own.  But I do tend to use whatever fibers are called for, thus my choice to use them.  No bleeding problems this time around, thankfully!  And the linen is actually a pretty beige brown color -- it looks washed out in the picture.

Since I did the piece over one, I had to change the name/date/place parts of the design.  Which was fine -- I loved Alma's idea of using a grandmother's name and date.  My maternal grandmother was the ideal grandmother to us grandkids so of course I thought of her.  Thus I put her name where the "Walnut, Iowa" was.  And in place of Margaret Harris' name, I put my grandmother's birth year.  I love being able to have her name on this piece.

In other news, the tree service finally came on Saturday bright and early.  Hallelujah!  They took the widowmaker branch down, and also trimmed the tree some more.  And they took away all the branches that were strewn all over the yard as well, and cut any log sized wood into usable sized pieces for the wood stove.  Yay!  So now the yard looks normal again.  Whew!  It's been nice and warm so huge amounts of snow are now gone.  Of course, there are still huge plots of snowiness everywhere too, but hopefully not for long!  I'm hoping there will be no more snow!

Thanks for stopping by and saying hi.  I love reading your comments!  Have a great week!