When you aren’t doing an outdoor, snow shoveling, workout you can get a whole lot more done.  I’m talking over 16,000 steps and several tons of snow moved workout….  When you get bathed and ready for the day, before lunch, you get a whole lot more done.  When you aren’t whining and complaining about how sore your thighs, buns and traps are, from the aforementioned workout, you get a whole lot more done.  So enough of that.

5.85 miles on the treadmill, piece of cake, then off to *my space* to have some fun!

Lots and lots of fun. Many different projects in the works, various stages of completion… I love finished off spools and spools of thread.  I hate not realizing I don’t have a common color that I recently ran out of.  Like today…….  I hate list making…

Quick trip out to admire the snow piles, the 20 footers are really pretty, by the way, and I am once again in business.  And another thing…..  Our driveway is sparkling blacktop, now, not a lick of snow or ice, anywhere to be seen.  Not another one like it anywhere, not that I saw.  I guess I, now, better understand why the old neighborhood guardian asked if we had a heated drive.  No, you know better.  You plowed the drive the winter it was being built and the winter before we moved in.  No, not heated then, not heated now.  Nice, of you, not to notice us working our buns off as you drove up and down the street trying to pack it down……..  Anyway……

So much accomplished today.......

Figured out placement #5.  After have 4 place mats finished, keeping my eyes open for appropriate ideas for #5 and #6, this came to me.  It’s a variation of one of the earlier ones with a Cherry HouseQuilts twist.  I used smaller colorway blocks, finished at 1″, to match the earlier place mat, but other wise the proportions are the same.  I love it!  Now I need a #6.  Maybe one with more of the colors combined?  I love Kona cotton solids!

And the back machine quilted. Strange how the Herb continuous bias binding doesn't show......

And another thing……

What are the odds of stitching straight through the eye of a needle without breaking a thread, breaking or bending the needle, either needle, for that matter, hearing it click or even putting your eye out?  Really?  Tell me if you know.

I suppose it depends on the size of the needle, both machine and the stitched needle, the speed at which you are sewing, the number of miles of thread you are laying down….

What are the odds?

And as you can see this needle is no embroidery needle.  It has a teeny tiny eye, like a number 12.

Really? Twice?

No, not once, not twice?  Three times?  I cut the first one away with wire cutters as I mulled those odds.  Never thinking a picture was in order…….  And no, I didn’t aim for the eyes, or swerve towards it.  I know the value of eyesight and yes, I had glasses on, because we all know a good Girl Scout leader will tell you to *Never* sew over a pin or needle because you could put an eye out.  She didn’t tell you that safety glasses are also an option.  That was up to your Mom to share that tip.

And you wonder why I was using needles as pins?  Well, I’ll tell you what I know.  I know there is much less chance of getting the head of a pin stuck under the foot of the machine, hanging up your stitching, when their is no pretty, colorful, little, round head…  Those flat little daisy pins are fine and good, but they bend too easily and it’s much harder to remove the plastic from your stitching line than it is an eye of a needle…..  Just sayin’……..

And to top off all that fun and excitement, Peter makes Hash Browns and Eggs Benedict with Hollandaise.

Yum.  And more yum, yum.