Here's the back story of this snowman guy for this week. TWO YEARS AGO in October, I found an adorable quilt pattern called Happy Snowman Wool Applique from Prairie Grove Peddler. As I looked at the pattern, I imagined it as an ornament, not a quilt, and I had to have it. (The company also has a pieced version of the Happy Snowman design, but the squares would have been TEENY in an ornament version.) I was so excited about how cute he was gonna be, I decided that I could make a BUNCH of them for friends and family! This is not uncommon for me. Why make one when you can make 20 in 20-times the time?

So shrinkety-shrink with the photocopier, and tracety-trace onto fusible webbing, and fusety-fuse to some cottons from my quilt fabric stash, and stitchety-stitch around the edges, and I was good to go, right? NO problem. I actually traced the patterns onto the fusible-backed fabric in the car on a Thanksgiving weekend trip out of town. (No, I wasn't driving!) I layered and fused them in the hotel room. I cut around the shapes while hanging out with the folks I was visiting. (They knew me well enough to know that this was NOT rude.) I knew that the blanket stitching around the edges would be a great take-along project, and aren't we always looking for a great take-along project? I knew I had several long trips ahead of me, so no problem, I'll have them done by Christmas 2005. (THIS is where my personal projects goes awry every single time! No concept of the actual time involved!)

And it was a great take-along project... for the rest of '05 and half of '06! I think I finished the blanket stitching by summer, but, c'mon, who wants to assemble Christmas ornaments in June when there's sunshine, rollerblading, and the lakefront to be enjoyed? (I ought to!) So it took a snow day December 1, 2006 to get what I thought was all of them assembled. And everyone loved them (or said they did).

But earlier this year, as I was searching in the mess that is my craft room for a runaway spool of thread, I ran across one little orphan snowguy behind my sewing cabinet (along with several runaway spools of thread, stray pattern pieces, and some truly scary dust bunnies). Did I finish him right away when I found him? Don't be silly. But Katie's invitation Wednesday lit a fire under me. So last night, all I had to do was add the backing, ribbon hanger, and stuffing, and here he is, hanging on my yet-to-be-decorated Christmas tree.