Snowflakes on my Mind

Have you noticed most of my sewing since arriving home has been either fall or winter related? It's just a coincidence of timing as things moved along the conveyor belt of quilting projects. Yesterday I had my long-awaited pedicure with a new nail tech. I'll say I was just a little anxious about having my nails done by a complete stranger. It's an intimate experience for both when someone is washing and massaging one's feet, and so I was hopeful we'd be compatible in whatever way that matters. 

There was a little time left before I needed to leave, and so I finished stitching the honeybee to calm my nerves.

Those French knots seemed a little daunting when I started them. I've always been able to stitch them easily enough, but stitching so many can be tedious. When he was all finished, I had to smile. He's soft and fuzzy.

So I went off to my pedicure in a smiling mood, and it all went fine. I didn't expect otherwise, but you know how it is. I felt good enough after that to head down to the optical shop at Costco (shudder...did you just feel that cold chill? Happens whenever someone mentions "Costco" around me), to have my new glasses adjusted. They were slipping down my nose. Now they're fixed. After all that, I headed for home. After being out amongst The English, I needed a nap.

When I made my way into the sewing room later in the afternoon, I found Sadie raring to get busy quilting the latest little snowflake.

For the snowflake, I wanted to use one of the many blue metallic threads I have in my collection. I forget which project I was working on when I purchased metallic blue threads in several colors, trying to find just the right one. I can't even recall the project now, but the spools of thread are always hanging there on the wall, mocking me for my lack of foresight. It's a pretty thread.

I've had pretty good luck with Superior Metallic threads, and I only needed to do a little bit of quilting with it. How bad could it be?

Well, the thread broke after about three inches. Switching from a metallic needle to a top-stitching needle helped quite a bit, but I was still plagued with breakage despite incorporating all my special treatments for making friends with metallic threads. If it had been a larger project, I'd probably have selected something else. With such a small project, I soldiered on with minimal shouting of four-letter words. 

I did some pretty simple quilting. The snowflake is a looping design I saw someone do on YouTube.

When I'd finished with the blue snowflake, I switched to a less temperamental thread and finished it off with a hooking meander.

Then, I squared it up...

and sewed on the binding. Happily, I had a scrap binding that was precisely the right length.

Now it's ready for hand-sewing.

There was some happy mail in the mailbox yesterday. My friend Pam read the post where I mentioned these Groz-Beckert needles. She had a supply that she could no longer use with her sewing machine, and so she sent them to me. 

If you recall, I said the smallest size I had in my supply was an 80/12, and I didn't know if they came any smaller. Well, I can wonder no more, because these range in size from 60/8 to 70/10 and 80/12. Fantastic!!! These little needles are going to be so helpful when I'm making the collage quilts. I'm always looking for something that will stitch through applique without leaving a big hole. So, thank you, Pam. That was so sweet and generous of you!

Okay, so today we'll be doing some grocery shopping. I don't need very much for our day-to-day, but I want to get a head start on shopping for Thanksgiving. So much of a Thanksgiving meal needs to be purchased fresh, but I can get the other stuff ahead of time. It will save me much gnashing of teeth next week. 

When that's finished, I'll get back to finishing off the Snowflake binding. After that, I want to finish off this little quilt I started back in July. It was originally a free download on the Crabapple Hill website. Now, it's available for $5. 

It's about mug mat size, and I have a Christmas fabric selected to give it a little border. Ordinarily, this would have to wait a little longer on my quilting conveyor belt, but I'd like to have it finished for displaying at Christmas.

Okay, so the day is planned...time to get moving. I hope you have a good day planned for yourself.