Barbara, What a great memory of your Christmas table topper. (It's great now, in retrospect, of course!) When making a quilted Christmas stocking for a good friend, I ran the sewing machine needle through my finger and fingernail. Eeeeeeeee! My first thought was to keep blood off the fabric. Second thought was "did the needle break?" It didn't, but a quilter friend said I HAD to change needles. I smile to think of that incident every year when I hang up my own quilted Christmas stockings.