Hi ,

Happy Thanksgiving! This is one of my favorite holidays of the year because it's all about relaxing with the people I love and cooking a delicious meal. This year Josh and I are taking it easy with a simple meal in the evening after an afternoon with James.

One of our favorite traditions is setting up our Christmas tree early - the day before Thanksgiving - so we can enjoy the wonderful smell of pine. We don't decorate the tree until December, but just having it in the house makes the whole upstairs feel and smell wonderful.

Here's a tip for setting up your tree - if you get pine sap on your hands you can easily get it off with a spoonful of peanut butter. I can't stand the feeling of sticky sap on my fingers, so this peanut butter trick always comes in handy.

Now, we have a great newsletter for you today, including a beautiful new quilting design, how to quilt a Frozen cheater cloth panel, and of course our Thanksgiving sale which has already started at LeahDay.com

Free Motion Quilting Basics for Beginners - This workshop is all about the basics from picking out thread and needles to learning about speed control. If you're really confused and overwhelmed by free motion quilting, this workshop will give you plenty of confidence with a series of practice exercises including a full sized quilt perfect for beginners.

Quilting a King on Your Home Machine - If you're ready to go BIG, this is the workshop for you! You'll learn how to baste a huge quilt in sections on a regular dining table, then how to quilt it on a small home sewing machine, without breaking your back.

On Friday we learned a beautiful new design called Open Flow. I really love the organic, flowing nature of this new quilting design.

The texture really reminds me of Flowing Lines, but it's machine quilted more like McTavishing which means this free motion quilting design will be able to fit more places and be easier to quilt in the background of your quilts.

Do you have a big Frozen fan in your family? My little niece is obsessed with all things Frozen, so I knew she would love this small Olaf quilt for her birthday.

But time is short this time of the year so how do we quilt it quickly with the least amount of fuss?

I ended up quilting 99% of this Olaf quilt panel with white thread. I intentionally choose designs like Stippling and Tangle of Lights that could be quilted with minimal thread breaks. I also quilted this panel on a 1/2 inch scale and left most of Olaf un-quilted so he puffs up nicely on the surface.

All told, this project only took a few hours to quilt and Olaf is already bound and ready to give to my niece. It's so nice to be able to quickly quilt this project and have it done in time. I did have to remind myself a few times that finished is better than perfect, and now that it's done I really love how all the textures came together to make this cute quilt.

Whew....that's it for this week. I really hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving and have a relaxing, safe holiday with your family and friends.

Let's go quilt (or eat)!

Leah Day