Low Energy Day

Good morning, my friends. I'm afraid the Christmas madness is causing my battery to discharge more quickly and easily than usual. Yesterday's outing was for a haircut, and then I stopped at the grocery store on my way home. Christmas dinner will be at our house this year, and I wanted to pick up a few things I needed. I'll have to go again tomorrow to pick up the things that need a few more days in order to stay fresh for next week's meal. The weather was clear enough the kitties were able to get outside.

I can't say the traffic in town was bad, and I can't say anything was overly-crowded, but I think I was pre-worn-out before I even left home. It was a good day to get my once-per-season white chocolate peppermint mocha. I used to get these a lot more often until I realized they have about a zillion calories. They taste like it too. 

When I got home, I had some lunch, and then settled in for a much-needed nap. When I woke up, it was time to press and photograph February's block for "A Year in the Garden."

Here are the two blocks I have for this quilt so far. There's still a long way to go on this one.

My ironing board is set up in my sewing room. (You didn't think I actually ironed anything else, did you?) Smitty followed me downstairs, and he really wanted to sew.

He kept urging me on.

But I really just wanted to snuggle up on the couch with Sadie and do some slow-stitching.

Whenever I start a new stitchery project, I always work with the leftover cut-off bits of floss first. When I'd stitched all I wanted to stitch, I had it this far.

It was late in the day by the time I dragged myself into the quilting room. My focus yesterday was on this block. Mainly, I outlined things.

I did some pebbling in the "Eye of Newt" bottle.

I gave the remining birds some feathers.

And I stitched a spider web in this little circle of branches.

I was starting to do another spider web at this spot, but something went haywire with the machine there. I'm not sure what's going on. It starts clattering and making a whining noise, and I know right away something isn't right. The tension was all messed up on the back, and so I took out what I'd stitched and left it needle-down in this position. 

If the same problem crops up today, I'm going to give myself a new needle, rethread everything, lubricate the parts that need lubricating, and then see how it goes. I can't rule out the possibility that the bobbin thread wound at differing levels of tightness, which causes the tension to change suddenly as I'm stitching along. It seems all of quilting (at least on my machine) is an experiment involving tension adjustments.

So I'm getting my monthly pedicure today, and then I'm coming straight home. I'll have to make one final trip to the grocery store tomorrow, and so I'm pacing myself. Right now, I think I can squeeze in a little slow-stitching time before I need to get ready to go. There was no time for slow-stitching yesterday morning, and maybe that accounts for my lack of energy. Like I always say, the day doesn't get off to a good start unless there's time for slow-stitching.

Before I go, I want to answer a question from my friend, Dawn. Dawn, you are no-reply, and so I'm hoping you'll see my answer here. Dawn asked, "How do you color your embroideries. Thanks, they look great!" Thank you, Dawn. The embroidery can be colored with either crayon or colored pencil. Colored pencil gives the best result (in my opinion), but it's also more involved. I generally do mine with crayon. There are some good videos explaining the process on the Crabapple Hill Studios website.

Okay, and with that, I'm going to spend some time with my newest stitchery. I'm hoping today will be a little less taxing, and I'll have more energy for sewing when I get home.