Holly King hand embroidery slowly making progress

The hand embroidery on the Holly King block is slowly progressing, this week for some reason I just wasn't in the mood to stitch, finally last night I had the urge to pick up my needle to stitch the leaves on the mistletoe. A perfect way to spend a quiet evening and continue where I left off today.

I have been having bouts of numbness and tingling in my hands again so I'm sure that had a lot to do with me not in the mood to stitch. Its such an uncomfortable sensation bordering on painful if I hold something in my hands too long.

With the cooler weather comes the drying of skin and for me the splits in my fingers, so I dug out one of my favorite tools, the leather thimble, its the only thimble I am comfortable wearing, I don't use a thimble often but when I do its this one: Nimble Thimle.

I first came across this type of thimble back in 1989 at a quilt shop in Allentown, NJ after it was suggested to me by the shop owner, back then I did all my quiltmaking by hand, (for the most part I still do). After the first few days I adapted to the awkwardness on my finger and realized my finger wasn't aching with sticks and stabs from those ever sharp needles.

This is one of those essential tools if they are in stock I buy all of them off the rack whenever I come across them because not all quilt shops or craft stores sell them and if they do most of the time the large size is gone. I use mine until it falls apart.

With the cooler weather settling in central Florida I'll start working on a few larger quilt projects through the autumn and winter months along with the hand embroidery projects.

I was shopping at Target a few days ago and couldn't resist buying a new box of Crayola crayons for color tinting some of my emboridery projects.

I chose the box with 120 different colors, there was a box of 96 but what the heck for a few cents more I may as well have more colors, sure I could have chosen one close to the color but that type A personality still rears its beastly head at times.