Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, everyone!  I hope everyone had a spectacular holiday!  I have just put the kids to bed for the night (they were super exhausted) and I am settling in with two of my Christmas gifts right now.  I got this:

and I got this:

from my in-laws.

Both books are by the same person and I've already made two motifs since sitting down.  They're um...not very good as I've only just today learned how to read a pattern.  I made one circular one that looks like a flower and one lacy diamond one.

Flower one:

And the diamond one:

The diamond one is a little bit sloppy.  In my defense, I didn't understand how to read the pattern with this one and then when I figured it out, I had to pull out the work and then re-do it.  So I tried, I really did.

I'm off to work on another motif so I can get to practicing reading patterns.  Hopefully just doing these little projects helps.  I'm thinking of just doing a bunch of different random motifs in different shapes and colors to turn into an extremely random blanket.  Maybe a purse or something.  I haven't decided yet.

Happy stitching, everyone!