Winning at Thread Chicken

Well, I can imagine y'all have been waiting on tenterhooks to find out if I was able to finish the pebbling before running out of thread. Smitty and I placed our wagers on this as I was getting ready to start quilting yesterday. I was pretty sure I'd run out, but Smitty was betting against the thread.

Sadie doesn't go in for gambling, so she watched from atop the book case hutch on my desk.

Betting on thread is purrposterous.

So I stitched the first block, and so far so good.

Smitty got up close and personal. He was pretty sure he was going to make some money on this effort. He's been saving up his money for a slingshot to use when he's hunting gophers in the field.

And, whoa...I guess Smitty wins because I was able to stitch the last block with thread to spare.

I tried pressing my thumbnail through what's left to see if I could find the spool within, and I couldn't. 

So, I'll have a fresh new spool arriving today or tomorrow. That's okay because I expect I'll use this same thread when I get around to quilting the Snowflakes.

Or even when I get around to quilting I Believe in Snowmen.

You might say there is snow end to the snow quilting around here. (Ha!)

Waiting outside the quilting room/office must be a new thing because this is what I saw when I stopped for the day and left the room.

Downstairs though, there was a treasure. We ordered a new coffee machine for the RV, and it came in a big box. Smitty checked it out. He's been thinking of moving into an apartment. Sadie tried this out too, but I wasn't able to get a picture of her. 

There's nothing better than a big box. When Matthew was a little boy, he moved into a big box that held a television at one time. He decorated the walls with crayon and then slept inside for several days before returning to his bedroom.

As I mentioned yesterday, we spent some time in the morning planting crocus and daffodil bulbs. I figure there must be good soil somewhere on the planet, but I've never heard of anyone finding it. Our soil is hard as a rock and laced with tree roots. It gave us an opportunity to use this cool tool we bought last year for these kinds of planting efforts. It's a mini auger that fits on an electric drill. It made it easy to dig holes for the 60 bulbs we planted yesterday. This is available on Amazon and it comes in several different sizes. This is the one we have.

We had to stop for a while to let the drill motor cool off. While we sat on the garden bench, Smitty went hunting for mousies in the bee garden. He caught one too. It was dee-licious...or so I'm told.

The only other thing I have to show for yesterday is that I finished this section of my current slow-stitching project.

Then, I moved the hoop up to capture the rest of the candies in the mason jar. This section shouldn't take too long.

Today I'll switch to a plain white thread and start straight line quilting on the nine-patch sections of the Snow Globes quilt. I'm not sure if I can finish it today, but I'm hoping I'll get the quilting over the finish line no later than tomorrow. There isn't much else on the agenda for today, so it should be a mostly sewing day.