Current Forever Project: Dress Me Up, dress 9

While I am working on quilting projects with the sewing machine a/o quilting machine, I am also (slowly) progressing on my current Forever Project ™, "Dress Me Up".

Dress #9 is now completed.

Lots and lots of big, showy flowers over the entire dress.

I used DMC's metallic floss for the squiggly lines in the belt


Work now progresses to Dress #10.  The light at the end of this tunnel is definitely getting brighter. :-)

One thing that has been reinforced for me: doing precision hand work is a challenge when you are riding in a car.  Those roads are NOT as smooth as they look!

Also!! News flash!  I have discovered a wonderful and new (to me) product! 

I never have been able to use a metal thimble.  It never feels "right" to me.  When I found soft, leather thimbles, I was happy .. and they even have a small, metal disk at the tip to help push the needle through thicker fabric.  But, eventually, even these leather thimbles wear out.  I have several of them and have stitched the leather at the top back together many times so I could keep using them, but the leather is just plain wearing away.  Additionally, over time, even the small size thimble stretches out and is then too big for my finger .... it will then slip off.  Most annoying.

I was cautiously hopeful when I found Colonial's "Thimble Pad".  It's a circle of leather with sticky stuff on the underside that adheres to your finger tip .. just exactly where you need to have some protection.  Allegedly, the adhesive is reusable but since I've only used one Thimble Pad once, I don't have first hand experience with the reuseability factor.

So far, it works very nicely!  It does feel weird to have this "thing" stuck to your finger .. but it does NOT move and it doesn't catch the thread.