A different style (for me)

 I've been stitching for over 30 years now and I find myself gravitating to a handful of designers; mostly Nora Corbett/Mirabilia, Rosewood Manor, Tempting Tangles and Glendon Place for larger pieces and Lizzie Kate and Cross Eyed Cricket for smaller designs. I've stitched a lot of other patterns from other designers over the years, but these are the ones I find I have a lot of and work on a lot. One style I've never been fond of in general is primitive (though I make an exception for The Primitive Needle), and to me Blackbird Designs charts are mostly in this category. However there are a few of their patterns that I like, including America, which was released sometime around the year 2000, is out of print and usually sells for fairly high prices when it does show up. Recently a shop here in Wisconsin received some older stock of America from the designers and I was able to get the chart for retail price; I decided to make a start on it because I was excited to see how it would look on the fabric I chose for it so I started it on June 11 and this is what it looked like on June 13:

The fabric is Zweigart Sparkle Grey/Silver Belfast linen, and as I wanted it to be the background I wasn't planning to fill in the part around the flag as they did in the model. Working on the quilt-like border with nice sized chunks of color was a welcome change from the Rosewood Manor model I should have been working on, as it contains a lot of color changes and small areas with just a few stitches, so I decided to stick with this one a bit longer and then I ended up stitching straight through to the 21st when I was able to finish it. I was a bit torn about whether to leave the America portion off altogether as the design is already pretty tall and narrow and I knew I would have to fill in the area around it for it to look good on this fabric; this is what it looked like without the section:

And after:

I do think I like it better with the banner portion, but I suppose that could just be because it's already done now! I did make some changes along the way, and am very happy that I was able to get this for such a good price and have the fun of stitching it already.

Now I'm back at work on the model until July 1 when the next parts of two SALs are released; already looking forward to working on those again.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!