A long overdue Christmas update

Thanksgiving was the last post? How dreadfully rude I've been. I've hardly been reading blogs for the last few months, though, much less writing them. The Other's Christmas pressies only just got shipped off (thanks for understanding, dear Other). But things are starting to straighten out.

As the crafty blogosphere well knows, good intentions for handmade holiday gifts can quickly go awry. Only half of my planned projects ended up getting started, and those begun weren't always quite finished. The Mother's bag still needs a strap, and she was left to sew the backing onto Youngest Brother's embroidered pillow, stitched to a design modified from The New Crewel in colors he's planning for his dorm room.

Youngest Brother is getting quite handy with a needle himself. He started making sock creatures from Stupid Sock Creatures, and now he's making them to his own designs. His skills grew even over the week I was staying with the family, and the creatures are brilliant. I wanted him to make me one, and he started to, but we agreed that it was his best yet and he shouldn't part with it. He's been making rugs, too, and gave me this one as a Christmas gift. It's made of fleece and feels brilliant under your feet—I love it!

The Mother made me this pin cushion in homage to the rodents with which I share my home (though they've been making themselves scarce for several months, touch wood). I'd been meaning to whip up a pin cushion myself, but this beats anything I could have done. It'll go nicely with a quilt I'm planning, too.

The Mother was working on Middle Brother's wedding quilt over the holidays, Youngest Brother was making sock creatures, and I was starting to hand-quilt my Card Catalog quilt, which I'll post on soon. I don't think the Father and Middle Brother quite knew what to make of the lot of us sewing away in the living room. The Mother and I made the rounds of all the quilt shops in the Charleston area and even took a crack-of-dawn road trip to the bowels of North Carolina for the legendary Mary Jo's Cloth Store. All the ladies in the quilt shops insisted that the prices and selection were unbelievable, but neither of us had seen it for ourselves. The shop was tucked into the mall that time forgot, but it was a thing of beauty: bolts and bolts and bolts and bolts everywhere—quite overwhelming. Thanks must go to the Mother for offering up her credit card to satiate my every fabric desire. It was great fun to shop for fabric with someone who knew (more than me) about quilting, too, and we were both bouncing ideas off each other all week. Now I'm all stocked to start several of the quilts that have been simmering in the design pot....