I (HEART) Blackbird Designs

I guess by now you are wondering where in the world I have disappeared to. It's been quite some time since I posted here in blog land and I really have no excuse. I will let you know that I have been busy. Our family went to Myrtle Beach for a week, I have been cleaning/organizing/fixing, etc, my house AND.......I just got back from a fabulous trip to Tulsa Oklahoma to take a class with Blackbird Designs at The Silver Needle!

This trip to Tulsa was LONG - 15 hours - but was so worth it! After crashing from the long drive, we (Kathy, Lorrie and myself) were up early for breakfast at MiMi's Cafe and then headed straight to The Silver Needle. This shop is awesome! I have never seen so many models in one shop before. So many different ways of finishing (cubes, wall hangings, stand ups, etc) and so many of the models were stitched over one. Lots of Vera Bradley and lots of fabrics - oh my! We shopped for almost 4 hours straight! Here's some photos to just show you the goodness......





We then headed to Sonic for something to drink because it was quite warm (114 degrees on Saturday!) and then headed back to The Silver Needle for the Blackbird Designs Meet and Greet. We got to see so many of Barb and Alma's designs, including their original antique samplers, and hear them talk about their friendship, how they acquired some of the samplers and just how passionate they are about sharing heritage and the love of telling a story through stitching. We got to see our class kits all bundled together in a basket and also the actual needlecase and pincushion we would be making the next day (and might I add, served on a glass plate that we got to keep!)....I also got to have my picture made with these two lovely ladies!











And to top off the weekend, I saw some of my Cross Stitch Pals!

Here's Karen(AZ) shopping at the wonderful fabric counter:


Chris(NC), Michele(WA) and Karen(AZ):


Kathy, Lorrie and myself giddy with shopping excitement:


And, two of the nicest ladies I think I have ever met. I just got to "know" Cathy and Joan in Blog Land just a couple of months ago when I emailed Joan to find out how she had finished a beautiful Christmas ornament. The conversation went from ornament finishing to discovering that we were both headed to Tulsa. Joan told her friend Cathy and the rest is history. I now have two great friends to keep in touch with (check out their blogs too for more weekend pictures and fun facts):


I could go on and on about how much fun I had and also share the 156 photos I took, a large number of those were taken of shop models, but I'll stop here and leave you with pictures of an Oklahoma storm. This was just a little pop-up storm but for this southern gal, it was something to see!