Remembering Barb Adams

My love for Blackbird Designs continued in 2010, beginning with Stitchville’s first ever Spring Fling. I was delighted to learn that Barb and Alma would be the featured designers. We were a small, intimate group that first year and it was oh so much fun. They made us paint. Yes, they made us paint. And we waxed. On Friday, they wanted us all to leave with a finished project. Barb sat at a sewing machine in the back of the room sewing up the little sachets that we had each stitched our initial on. We enjoyed their stories and were treated to a gallery of Blackbird Designs projects, a testament to how beloved they already were in the stitching community.

Our weekend class projects…

Alma, Deb from Stitchville, and Barb

Once was not enough for me though. In July, I tolerated the heat and humidity of Tulsa so that I could spend another weekend with the Blackbird girls. This crowd was not so intimate - 150 in total if I remember correctly. They made us paint again. I think we glued pins too. They always pushed us outside of our comfort zone encouraging us to try new and creative things.

Here’s Barb addressing their adoring fans.

And Alma…

Here is the class piece from the Silver Needle weekend.

I was a lot younger then. I had more hair too!

Such fond memories — but wait, there are more!