Other things that happen in the wee hours of the morning.....

I started the Sumptuous Surfaces course - devouring all 32 pages of the first lesson! I've been wanting to do some handstitching for awhile - and after said devouring - I have to wait until next week because I am tasked with coming up with a design first! Pout!

Since I'm all about instant gratification, I pulled out some crazy squares I had been playing with awhile back and attacked! I'm incorporating some moosehide scrap as embellishment and stitching on that. Even with a leather needle, pulling embroidery thread through hide is tough - especially if you're doing brazillian stitching! Wouldn't it be nice if they came up with a way..... and then ..Eureka!... I remembered! In Birmingham I had bought a fancy little gadget that sits on your thumb and allows you to grasp and pull needles through wads of fabric. I had promptly forgotten about it until last night. Much rummaging through the stash later.... I think its original intention is for hand quilters. It works wonderfully on moosehide and even more wonderfully with frostbitten fingers (shovelled the driveway)!

I was so impressed that I went wading through the rubbish bin to find the package so that I could share the name and manufacturer information. Are you ready for it? The wonderproduct of my day is called ...... a Needlepuller! Snort!

The packaging sucks though! It doesn't tell you anywhere who makes it or where you can get another one. On the plus side, I now know the name for needepuller in three other languages: Tireur d'aiguille and Naaldtrekker and Nadelzieher. One I can identify as French. No clue about the others though. And that is about as helpful as I can be!