The best plans of mice and men ...

Well due to some high sugar counts - I overindulged on carbs and sweets as a diabetic should never do - I didn't want to risk driving to the Happy Quilter. Driving when one's numbers are high is the moral and physical equivalent of driving drunk. So, I never got the fabric I had planned to ... I'll have to defer that to next Friday morning.

So, instead of sewing finishes, I devoted my time to stitching: I finished the cross-stitching on the UFO Turkish Tile biscornu and began the assembly but had to stop when my eyes began to cross and my vision got a wee bit blurry for such fine work [another consequence of high sugar numbers]. I'll photograph the biscornu when it is fully assembled, stuffed and buttoned. Then I finished stitching and assembling the Be-Witched clothespin doll that Sandy sent me as part of our Halloween exchange. Of course, being the sort of anti-kit crank that I am, I changed out all the threads, edged all the raw edges with blanket stitches in DMC 310 and sewed the dress, sleeve and hat seams instead of gluing as per instructions. Turning those sleeves right side out again was a real challenge since the top of the cone was so very tiny. The only gluing I did was when affixing the floss "hair" and the hat to the clothespin "head". I also sewed a JABCo black cat button [which blends right into the black aida in the photo] to the bottom of the dress and added a black & green beaded hanger. I think the result is attractive. If one of you gentle readers would like to try your hand at this little ornament, I would be happy to mail the patterns and graphs along with the glow-in-the-dark floss that came with the kit to the first person to post a comment asking for it. You would have to provide your own black aida and a clothespin ... though if you'd like some black linen [28ct] I could provide a piece of sufficient size for the project.

I also finished the Homespun Elegance Fall Pumpkin as a mini pillow ornament and substituted an Olde Brass Star button for the Star Pumpkin button it called for ... since that was what I had on hand ... I think it looks acceptable.

Since I was still not in the mood for sewing finishes and not quite up to working on my Miribilia Halloween Faerie, I had to cast about for something to do above and beyond drinking a full gallon of water to help purge the extra sugar from my bloodstream. So, I pulled a Christmas ornament from the JCS 2007 issue out of my to-do binder: Country Cottage Needleworks Peace, using a sample piece of Zweigarts Cork Linen 18ct in Confederate Grey and stitching over one. This linen is very soft in the hand and easy to stitch ... of course, stitching over one, the usual care to railroad and lay stitches in such a way as to avoid slippage had to be taken ... I am using Belle Soie silks and Rainbow Gallery Splendour silks and Mandarin bamboo floss on this ornament and, in each case, two strands covers nicely. If one were to stitch over two on this fabric, it would be an easy way to enlarge a favorite ornament or small motif chart to pillow or tote bag size ... of course one would have to ply up proportionately, using 4-6 strands of DMC cottons or using a bulkier fiber like DMC perle cotton. It could get quite expensive using silks, overdyes or any other high-end fiber when stitching over two. I'll take a photograph when this is done. I am planning on finishing it as a flat ornament.