Simon's Woodland Friends

My friend is expecting her first baby - a boy named Simon - and although I contemplated making something OTHER than a baby blanket, which has been my staple, I got inspired after talking to her on the phone before her shower. She has always been naturally creative and decorating her son's room has proven to be no different. She took a bunch of her husband's old flannels and cut them up to make a big wall hanging, and to go along with the flannel patterns added a "woodland creatures" theme. Her husband grew up in a small forest/country community about 20 minutes from town, and as I spent most of my time out there as a teenager (we went to the same youth group and had the same friends), I knew almost exactly what she was envisioning.

I went to Fabric Depot and picked out some earth-toned flannels to make a patchwork blanket, and decided to add some embroidered woodland creatures. Everything came together seamlessly, except for a bobbin emergency at the last minute, which threatened to keep me from even going to the shower. Procrastinators will know this feeling.

That brings me to a funny story.

It was about an hour or so before the shower when I needed to put some more thread on the bobbin. For some reason, it just wouldn't take, and the zig-zag pattern turned funky and loose; I could not figure out why! I unthreaded and rethreaded, looked frantically for the manual, troubleshooted online, but to no avail. So I called Mom and got straight to the point, no chit chat. "Mom, I have a huge problem, you know the blanket...." and I explained my issue. She listened attentively, and apparently, had a look of concern and worry on her face, because my Dad and Caitlin were sitting with her and thought something terrible had happened. They stopped what they were doing to see what the bad news was, and when my mom finally said, "Well, did you rethread the needle?" They looked at each other and went "awhhhh!!!!" They thought somebody had been in an accident, died, etc.

But it was an emergency!

I had threaded the bobbin the wrong way. I fixed it, and was not the last one to get to the shower - a win in my book.