A LITTLE BLUE BIRD ARRIVES

My heart is like a singing bird.

Christina Rossetti

And I am  singing a very happy song, to add to my delight this beautiful little bird arrived in the mail today. This is another page for my tiny book and this one comes from Ann. I set this challenge for the Stitching friends Group, and have been told since the easy part has been the stitching, it seems it takes quite a bit of research to find the right design for each person in THE RIGHT SIZE which is quite small this design is under 3 inches so you can imagine with this one the challenge  of completing the stitching in the small space. Ann has done wonderfully with her bird, I love it and here is a much enlarged photo so you can see all the detail. 

And to my stitching I have moved on from the robins, my SAL design which I can not share yet is finished, and I did so enjoy that project I am now looking for designs to go with this quote from the book The Secret Garden................ . 
"A gardener couldn't have told thee better. They'll grow now like Jack's bean-stalk. They're crocuses an' snowdrops, an' these here is narcissus es," turning to another patch, "an here's daffydowndillys. Eh! they will be a sight." 
So the search started with crocuses, I came up with several and then decided on two, this one a freebie from  Borduurblad  here is the link

This is pattern 37  and I enjoyed stitching it as I felt the crocuses do look just like they do in the garden but it would be a bit small to uses on my main project, so I will use it on a page in the small book I am making for Annette of California Stitcher who gave me the idea of using the Secret Garden as a theme. I read a lot of books as a child but could not remember this one I have now read it and enjoy going back to it for more inspiration, I want to use quotes from the book ...easier on bigger pieces, however have come up with an idea which I will share with you in my next post when I have tried it out and know that it will work.

 The other design I liked was in one of my Danish Cross stitch books but was far too tall, so I tried a combination of the two,  I stitched this on Jan's hussif to try it out to see how it looks. here is the result. I think I will be working with this one and expanding it to a clump of crocuses, I also like it on this linen Permin Lambswool 35 count so am having second thoughts about the antique white linen I bought for the project.

Thank you to everyone who left comments on my last posting again my email system has linked them all together........ maybe I should just try the reply to all button and see what happens.