More Top-Stitching

First I just want to say that earlier today I whined about our heavy snowfall overnight, which is unusual this late in the season (or early in the season, depending on which season you're talking about--the snowfall, not the whining).  It isn't just my imagination that snow near the end of March is unusual.  This afternoon I heard on the radio that it is the heaviest snow fall on record for this date in history.  Apparently way back in 1933 there was a heavy snow fall in April.  Aside from that, this is the most snow this late into the year.  Interesting.  Weird weather everywhere.

So I did a few things around the house and I donned my boots and warm clothes to go out and feed our feathered friends.  Twice.  I didn't put peanuts in the feeder for the blue jays first time around.  When I spied them trying to get seed out of the little tube feeder (which is hard for them to do), I took pity on them and went out for a second time.  They emptied the peanut feeder in about 20 minutes.

Then I continued on with the top stitching for this last block in the Home is Where the Heart is quilt.  Today I completed all the brown thread and the red thread,

including this peppermint stripe on the peppermint candy stepping stones.

My machine has what's called a "triple stitch" that I'm using for these embroidered parts.  It gives me one stitch back and then two stitches forward, one stitch back and two stitches forward, and so on, so that each stitch actually gets sewn three times before it moves on.  It works really well for something like this.  I'm going to use it to embroider the reigns from the reindeer to Santa's hands.

That's pretty much all the sewing I did today.  It is rather slow going when I'm doing this top-stitching.  I'm so glad to be finishing this up.  I started three blocks of the month at the same time over two years ago.  I can only plead temporary insanity.  All three were applique projects with lots and lots of top-stitching.  One of them included hand-embroidery as well.  The other two quilts are completed.  Only this one is left.  Needless to say, I've about worn myself out doing applique and top-stitching.  I'm avoiding it as much as possible until the sting of these three projects has left me.  It might be a good occasion to throw a party when this one is finished.

Also today, I sent out emails assigning partners and launching the monthly doll quilt swap.  Be watching for postings of doll quilts at the Doll Quilters Monthly blog.  We have an enthusiastic group of thirty doll quilters representing four countries.  New members are always welcome.  Join in if you like!