Winding Down

Good morning, my friends. I'm writing fast this morning. I'm heading out for my final monthly pedicure of 2025. Seems like there ought to be some kind of revelry associated with this, but I'm not aware of any associated parties. This pedicure will have to last me until March. When I'm going a long time between pedicures, I choose a light color of polish. It doesn't show as badly as it chips off. What's that you say? I could use polish remover? Oh...but that would mean I would have to lean over and touch my toes. Can you still do that? Certainly I wouldn't want to injure myself while I'm traveling. No, I think the light color of polish is the way to go. Don't try to change my mind. (For someone who's writing fast, I'm spending an awful lot of words on this polish color issue.)

There wasn't a lot of sewing yesterday. I stitched Tiny Treasure #27. This one has French knots, stem fill, and feather stitch.

With that finished, Smitty headed into the sewing room with me. He was my sewing cat yesterday.

The final step for the Northern Wilderness blocks was to top stitch along the edges of the applique. With so many nooks and crannies, this was slow going.

I started with the moose...

and finished with the Raven.

And then I lined up all the blocks for a group shot. Eight down now, and eight to go.

And that was some tedious sewing, let me tell you. When I finished both blocks, I was pretty well tired of sewing. I spent the rest of the afternoon sitting and reading. Sometimes it's good to take an afternoon off from the usual stuff.

I believe there will be time for this morning's Tiny Treasure before I need to get ready to leave. Looking ahead at the calendar, there's one more trip to the grocery store, and a trip to Erik and Mae's house for Christmas dinner with the family. Except for that, I can't think of anything else that will pry me away from the comforts of home until we're ready to head south. 

On today's agenda, I'm going to make some peanut brittle. I've only made it a few times. I'm using Mike's mother's recipe. If there's time, I'm going to bake some cranberry and orange muffins. I've been pacing myself with the Christmas baking so that we only have one candy and one baked good available for eating at a time. The baked goods are tasty with our morning coffee. The candy is tasty with our afternoon cup of espresso. Really...it's just an excuse to load up on sugar and caffeine. If there's time after all that, I'll get busy sewing together the blocks for the Shop Hop 4.0 project.

Okay, so I need to get on my way. Stitching awaits. Have a good day everybody.