A lump of coal for me!

Let's just acknowledge that I get an F for blogging and move on with our lives. Okay? Okay.

In the plus column, I get an A+ for crafting. I have been very productive lately, making several Christmas presents. From Bend the Rules Sewing, I made a lined tote bag for my sister-in-law out of some very cute monkey fabric. I also made an apron out of a similar monkey fabric, and a very odd little trivet out of still more monkey fabric.

I helped the same sister-in-law make some very cute little teacup cozies for her mother, and then I hauled out the serger (rethreaded it myself! only took an hour) and made some coasters for the in-laws' rental properties. Many moons ago, I made a series of crazy quilt squares using four pieces of fabric sewn together and then cut with a 6.5" square stencil. Now I piled those together with pieces of flannel, old sweatpants, or old towels, traced a 4.5" square on them, and serged together coasters. It was extremely cathartic and highly addictive. Only two broken needles brought my fun to a stop... fifteen coasters later.

I'm also working on a quilt for a baby (6 months late--the quilt, not the baby), some totebags for the baby's big sisters, and some late Christmas gifts for a rather understanding segment of my own family.

I have to put the finishing buttons on an infant dress I made a while back, kind of for the heck of it--it's the perfect gift for a baby due any day to some friends in Europe. And I also took a look at my fabric stash yesterday and saw a lot of possibilities for some very hilarious baby dresses, which I will make for my own amusement and then put on Etsy or something.

As you can see, I've been fitting in quite a bit of workshoppy time, when I'm not working or taking the dog to the vet. Yes, I was tossing the tennis ball for Winston the other day, and it beaned him right in the face. His eye swelled up intermittently for the next 24 hours, always returning to normal the moment a vet visit was mentioned and then swelling up once the threat of medical care had passed. It turns out all that was needed to cure it was $81 and a useless half-hour at the vet's office, during which time they confirmed that absolutely nothing was wrong.

I hope you have all had a lovely holiday. Try to capture a bit of the Christmas spirit and take it with you into 2008. I'd love to say I'll be blogging again before then (and hey, you never know), but perhaps as part of my New Year's resolutions, I should try to be more realistic.

At any rate, I'll be posting pictures of many projects before too long.