The Colors of Spring

These are the photos from the post shown below.  Love all the colors...

BlackBird Night - Spring

Last night was BlackBird night at Rose's.  It was the first time in the past four months that we didn't have a snow storm on BBD night!  Felt good.  I brought photos taken from Alma's blog showing the boxes they made at a recent class, and everybody wants to try their hand in creating one.  Carol had boxes to share. 
I brought a bunch of BBD fabrics from my quilt stash.  We're going to think on it and see what happens!  Rose and Carol have made similar boxes before, so we'll have some expert advice available.

Carol started June Berries, a design from a 2002 BBD book, last night.  Lenore continued work on her Valentine sampler that I have shown on here before.  She only has four more letters to do.  I'll post another picture once it is completed.  Toni worked on Winter Wonderland; she only has a couple of windows stitched, so I'll wait a little before posting a photo.  Rose worked on the Quaker Loose Feathers project that she started last year.  She's closing in on a finish on that.  I worked on the February block from Anniversaries of the Heart.

I have two colorful photos to share from last night...neither one has anything to do with stitching.  One is the white bean and spinach soup that Rose made...it was so colorful and healthy looking that I took a picture of it!  The second is of a sweet little spring bouquet she picked from her beautiful yard.  Happy Spring!

Well, it's not letting me post the photos right now, so I'll try to upload those separately.

Link to Beautiful Photos

I just came across some beautiful photos of BBD's June Berries.  I am going to take part in a BBD SAL in the Yahoo BBD group, and I have chosen this as my piece to stitch for the summer stitch along.  This can also be used as part of my contract piece for WRSG.

Take a look at Marti's photos.  They are beautiful.

http://marti-x.blogspot.com/

Anniversaries of the Heart on BBD Blog

Be sure to check out the photo of an Anniversaries of the Heart grouping being stitched on 20 count linen...whatever that is!  It is huge.  This is shown on Alma's BBD blog (link in the left margin).  I wonder how many people are stitching this village all on one piece of fabric.  I'll have to post an updated photo of mine soon.  Right now I am working on a birth sampler...Isabella was born yesterday!

Happy April !

This is a photo taken today of a crab apple branch on the tree in my front yard.

It is a nice little reminder to look around and be grateful

even though it is cold and dreary today.

On a different subject, check out Mary Kathryn's DMC chart.

(see eHandcrafts blog at the bottom of the screen)

Where do these women get the time???

Anniversaries of the Heart

Here is my start to the Anniversaries of the Heart series. 

I have barely started February...hope to catch up by the time the April design is released. 

I am stitching all designs on one piece of 40 count bisque from Lakeside Linens.

I hope the fabric color ends up being a good choice.

It's hard to know what to choose when just a fraction of the designs

are available, but I'm sure it will work out.

I am using thread colors of my own choosing...

some as specified, some my preference.

I am dedicating my first month to my grandmother, Anna Bach Gross,

who taught me to embroider and to love fabric and fibers

when I was about eight years old.

I still have to look up the year she was born,

so I can include this in the January block.

Love these little designs.  I can hardly wait to see my BBD village as it takes shape.

BBD Strawberries

We've been talking about making some strawberries...and there are so many patterns and materials from which to choose.  This morning Mary Kathryn (eHandcrafts) has posted some beautiful photos of the BBD strawberries from the Noel book.  Be sure to check out the photos...the link is in the blogs that I follow at the bottom of the screen.

They look good enough to eat...or make.  Now to find the time!

BlackBird's Winter Delivery

Lenore finished the stitching on Loose Feathers No. 5 - BlackBird's Winter Delivery - yesterday.

I think it is way nicer than shown on the flyer.  Really cute finish, Lenore.  Can't wait to see it framed.

Wintry BlackBird Night

For the third straight month we had some pretty wintry weather for our BBD night.  In fact, last month's get together was cancelled because of the weather.  This time it wasn't the volume of snow, but the fact that we  had rain all day, which turned to snow, so there were spots of ice under the inch or so of snow that we got.  It was a little disappointing after the lovely month of March that we have had...but maybe that's the "lion" since March definitely came in like a lamb.

No pix from last night.  I did start on the Anniversaries of the Heart collection.  Lenore continued work on her Valentine piece shown on this blog previously somewhere, I think.  Sorry that I don't remember the name.  It's the alphabet with heart bands between the letters done in a red and greenish color.  Rose started on Sweet Heart from the Joyeux Noel book, and Toni started on the last Loose Feathers publication with birds, birds, and birds everywhere.

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend.  Spring is set to return again next week.

Snow Garden

Tonight is our BlackBird night.  Seems like forever since we've gotten together for BlackBird...last month was called off because of snow.

Speaking of snow, I think I will start Snow Garden, the first design in the new Anniversaries of the Heart series.  I picked up the fabric that I ordered yesterday (40 count bisque from Lakeside Linen) and chose some colors that I hope will make my stitched piece look like the photo of their design.  This will be an experiment, because there are a lot of light colors and a light fabric.  We'll see how things work out.  Thanks to Rose and Carol for helping me choose threads.

Although I just started another huge project last weekend...Lauren Sauer's Anniversary Roses...I want to get started on this monthly BBD series.  Wouldn't it be wonderful to actually stitch the pieces as they are published?!  We'll see how that goes.  It never worked too well for me with quilting blocks of the month.

I'll post pix of what everyone else works on by this weekend.