OOOPS!

 I did not mean to let so much time elapse since the last post.  What can I say? I've had a major pandemic-fatigue induced hissy fit and had to work through it.

No, this isn't the Christmas I wanted, but it's the Christmas I have, so the only thing to do is make the best of it and move on.

There have been lovely moments.

Baby Girl came home last week-end for our family Christmas celebration. We feasted and laughed and stitched together (more about that later). And she made this for me for Christmas:

Tricia Nguyen offered this beaded basket kit several years ago. It is similar to the baskets the little girls made during the time that they were also stitching their caskets. I bought it, thinking if a twelve-year-old girl could do this, so could I.

I was totally ignoring the fact that it uses beads. Lots of beads. And beads and I don't get along. But Baby Girl loves beads, and they play well together. So when she asked me what I'd like to have to Christmas, I told her that nothing would make me happier than having this beaded and constructed.

And now I have it.

Baby Girl also announced that we were going to work on Emie's Etui together. We had both planned to take this as a workshop with Betsy Morgan at Salty Yarns last June. As we all know, that didn't happen, but the kits were sent to us so we could do the project.

So we stitched together, all afternoon and into the evening. So far, I've managed to get this much done:

 This will be the closure band, eventually. 

And this is the thread winder.

I would have been farther along, but when I turned the piece over to see if I had managed to get the thing reversible, I discovered a big glob of knotted thread on the back. Well, that couldn't be left alone, so I started reverse stitching and ended up just cutting everything out, which meant the whole flower motif had to be restitched. 

Since this is to be the quietest Christmas ever, I hope to get the two pieces that will make up the scissors fob stitched this afternoon.

And tomorrow, I have a Christmas project I plan to do, but you'll have to wait until then to see!