Happy New Year and Welcome to 2024 on Needle ‘n Thread! I hope you all had a joy-filled, restful break for the holidays!

I sure did! It was low-key, quiet, and restful almost to the point of comfortable stupefaction. My break consisted of some decorating, some cooking, some family-visiting, some reading, some watching, some sleeping, some listening, some eating, some friend-visiting, some tea-drinking, some merry-making, some cocoa-drinking, some game-playing, some carol-singing, some cheese-eating, some wool-embroidering, some mitten-felting, some soup-making, some cookie-decorating, more tea-drinking, more cheese-eating, and a little more tea-drinking. And cheese-eating. And soup-eating. And finally, some year-planning. And a some more embroidering. And some more sleeping.

I think that about covers it!

I’m not quite ready for the holidays to end – and in fact, they don’t officially end in my mind until January 6th. I leave my decorations up and keep the whole holiday vibe going until after the Epiphany (January 6th), which is the end of the real twelve days of Christmas. I’m always sad to see the lights, ornaments, trees, garlands, bows, sparkles and twinkles of Christmas disappear. But I suppose the transition out of Christmas makes next year’s preparation and festivities all the more welcome when they come around again!

Over the break, I started something so that I’d have a project to work on at home. I’ll show you…