I finished it.

The hot humid weather has socked back into southern Ontario.  The temperature on Tuesday was 30*(86F), factor in the humidity it felt like 40*(104F).  The air was still, not a breeze stirring and it wasn't pleasant outside at all.  We did our grocery shopping first thing in the morning and stayed inside the rest of the day.

I joined Karl in the living-room and finished up "the" snowman.  I made the flowers, sewed them on and then stuffed away.  It didn't take long.  When I sew something I'm going to stuff, I sew the seams 3 times.............yep, I said 3!  I start with the normal length which on my machine is 2.5, then drop it to 1.5 and then do 2.0.  If that isn't safe I don't know what is.  I haven't popped a seam yet while I've been stuffing.

Once she was stuffed I closed up the bottom and then tied quilting thread around the neck.  Then I put the bow on.  Then I had to find dowelling for her nose.  This one called for 1/4" and fortunately there was some in the workshop.  Easy to make.  Put the dowelling in a  pencil sharpener, sharpen, take it out, cut it off, then sand off the rough edges (if you don't have sandpaper you can use an emery board), then paint!

When I'm going to paint them, I put an old straight pin in the base

and then clip it into a clothespin.  I hold onto the clothespin when I paint and set it down for the paint to dry.

When the paint is dry and it doesn't take long, I affix it to the head with a dab of white tacky glue.  The paint I use is folk art paint and I buy mine at Michaels.  (Its the only craft store in my town.)

This is my family.  The original pattern came with the large snowman and the one next to him.  I re-sized the patterns and now have a family of Mr and Mrs and the boy and girl. 

The snowman I'm giving to my friend has no arms yet.  The tree I take them from still has lots of leaves on it.  I usually make these in the fall just after the leaves have fallen.  I take fresh branches and spray them with gold paint.  I'll have to "borrow" back this snowman and put the arms on in November.
Tomorrow I'll explain how to make the flowers.  They are a bit time consuming, but once you get the hang of them, very easy.  Hey, if I can do them,  you can do them.

I seem to be on a roll finishing up projects right now.  Maybe I can get back to Sylvia's soon and do another row.  I have a baby quilt to get going on too.  I'll show you the pattern -- soon.  I can't unfortunately find it on the web but it is really, really cute.  I'm going to keep searching for it.

Til tomorrow.....................................