HB Home Page

Take a good look at my graphics, and you'll be able to guess one of my absolute favorite things to do is counted cross stitch and other counted thread work. :-) I've been doing the counted variety for more than 30 years, and I've done embroidery since I was 4. No surprise to know the main focus of my website will be embroidery, primarily counted thread.

I wear a number of different hats. In real life, I'm Jill Martz. On America Online and on my license plates, I'm JillXS. I have been a host in Fiber and Needle Art, and now in Needlework Corner on AOL as HOST PCCL JillX. For purposes of my Website, I'm HBlossomXS.

I seem rapidly to be becoming a repository for an ever increasing amount of information about counted-thread embroidery. The reason, in large part, is that I host a Class Act Chat on AOL, along with HOST PCCL Filet. This chat is devoted entirely to teaching our favorite needlework techniques, as well as a wide variety of related information. I find myself teaching most of the lessons related to cross stitch; however, I learn as much as I teach each and every week. :-) I have kept all the information from our lessons since the first Class Act Chat began just over a year ago at the end of October, 1996. It goes out weekly in the Class Act Chatter, the newsletter I edit for these chats. My intent here is to make all that ever growing "stash" of information available to a wider audience.

Why HeartBlossoms? Although I am not published, I have been designing my own cross-stitch projects for a long time, and about a year and a half ago, I was asked to teach specialty stitches for counted thread to AOL members at two chats. When I asked the stitchers what kind of chart they'd like to have for this project, some said they wanted something for Valentine's Day, which was just around the corner. Others were looking forward to spring, and they requested a spring theme. So, Heart is for Valentine's Day. Blossoms are, of course, flowers for spring and also the name of one of my beloved dogs who is no longer with me. The resulting small sampler followed the theme with hearts and flowers done in several different specialty stitches. The projects I've designed for the online stitchers since then have all been HeartBlossoms. You'll find them available here at no charge, and I hope to add more as time goes by.

In addition to the charts, stitch diagrams, and stitch directions for the above-mentioned projects, there are lots of other goodies. Among them, you'll find instructions and information from each of the Class Act Chats I've hosted. Each week, I'll be posting the current Class Act Chatter. There's a feature called HeartBlossom's Buddies. There you'll find picture of my first two doggy friends, appropriately named Buddy and Blossom. Both of them have since passed from my life, but they've been on my website since the beginning. I will soon be adding pictures of my newest "kids," Skittles and Sadie. Heart's Delight is a page devoted to my favorite Internet stitching sites, with links to each of them. I'm sure I'll be adding other goodies from time to time.

CLASS ACT CHAT HEART'S DELIGHT HEARTBLOSSOM 'S BUDDIES HEARTBLOSSOM DESIGNS--AMISH DIAMOND NOW AVAILABLE!!

HEARTBLOSSOM'S EMAIL

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