GrandmaW: Marilyn Leavitt-Imblum

Marilyn Leavitt-Imblum passed away earlier this month shortly after her 66th birthday. She had been in failing health the last few years but her death made many people, including myself, very sad. Her obituary simply stated "she liked cross stitch" which made me laugh. She was cross stitch to many of us. Almost every design I have stitched has been one of her designs. She was incredibly talented and I will never live long enough to stitch all her designs - she has so many. Many of the designs are of angels and some centered around the Amish life she loved. Her designs had very little outlining because her use of shades of colors created the outlining which a cross stitcher really appreciated. I hate getting all done with a project then having to go back and outline everything. Her web site www.tiag.com has her designs and when you look at them you think, "I could never do this" but her patterns always had a flow - they made sense (usually) and were not difficult. I started cross stitching around 35 years ago with small projects but never would have continued without Marilyn's designs. I would start a new project and would think about it even at work - just wanting to get home and work on it more. Of course then the internet and knitting came along and cross stitching got pushed back on my list of hobbies. Now that I am retired I find I have time to stitch in the afternoon when the sun is shining and I am not tired so I am stitching much more. I found an old project last month that I started more years ago than I care to mention of Santa with two small angels in front of a tree holding the baby Jesus. I am working on it now in hopes to finish it before Christmas. It is called Song of Christmas if you look at the web site and want to see what it will look like someday. The only issue I have with it is it has a ton of little tiny beads that go all over the pattern. Those are a real pain to do.

Each of my kids have a cross stitch from me that was a Marilyn design and two at my house have won blue ribbons at the State Fair. One, Angel of the Morning also won Best of Show. It is the most beautiful design that Marilyn ever did and she said in the description "If I died tomorrow and this was the last Angel ever created under my hand, I would be at peace." I like to think the angels welcomed Marilyn home and perhaps now she knows how important she was to so many people. She will be missed.