Christmas Tea

I hopped up early Friday morning (12/15) to get my mulled cider in the crockpot, with faithful companions basking yet again:  

My honey made me a smurfy breakfast: 

because he knew I’d need energy for the rest of the day.  He ran to the store for a few supplies, set out extra chairs and cleaned our front porch while I made several runs of Homemade Bailey’s, then I set up tray tables with all of the extra chairs.  I was totally ready by the time my guests started arriving for a Christmas tea.  If the noise level was any indication, everyone had a wonderful time (I got pictures of most, but not all of the guests):  

Barb & Ginny

Diane

Ann Mary & Susan

Mary B & Dolly

Loree & Mary Ann

June, Sandy F & Paula

Susie

and as always the food was outstanding:  

Once everyone left, I have to admit it….I was pooped and sat down with my feet up for a bit of reading.  Loree and I have started a new set of murder mysteries (but yes…we are still keeping up with our wine themed murders :~)…the new ones are by Amanda Lee and they have an embroidery theme.  The first 3 books in the series are:  The Quick and the Thread, Stitch Me Deadly, and Thread Reckoning.  When you find an author you like, how do you find all of their books?  I use a website (https://www.fantasticfiction.com/) which I absolutely love.  It will list all of the books for a particular author, in the order they were written.  If the author writes multiple series, with multiple protagonists, the website will separate them out…it is absolutely great!  Anyway, after a bit of reading (and maybe a bit of napping  :~), Michael had the leftover halushkis for dinner and left for a Scrooge performance.  I headed to my studio and kicked off a couple of embroidered labels, and continued to sew on binding.  My quilt of valor labels have over 22,000 stitches and the first one stitched out without a hitch: 

but of course, 300 stitches from the end of the second label my bobbin ran out.  When I went to put in another bobbin…here’s what I found:  

So, I spent an hour getting all loaded again: 

and then finished off that second label. 

Michael was home at 10 PM and we talked for a bit before watching a bit of TV and getting to bed at mid-night once again  :~).