received gifts

I have lots of lovely friends and family members who have the best taste in gifts. I didn't get photos of everything but here are a few. There's an obvious textile theme.

Isn't the threadcase above amazing? The letters are just beautiful. The inside is a cardboard cover with paper pages. The skeins of silk are held in the pages with straight pins--which have aged and rusted beautifully. The book cover is hand embroidered linen. It's a wonderful treasure.There's one word for this lovely large square of hemstitched linen--potential. There are so many things it could become but right now I'm just enjoying it as it is.
I believe this fragile bit of fine embroidery is a decorative coaster. I'm not positive but it's the right size. Have you ever seen anything like this? Do you know what it might be? It may be from India. I love the lotus.This is the gift I asked my family for and they went together and got me this book. It has really nicely detailed instructions for the ten phase pieces for Japanese embroidery. It's an amazing book and now I can get on with my piece much more easily. The lovely fabrics are from Japan, gifts from my niece.

She joined us for our family Christmas via Skype. It was really, really cool and also very strange. The laptop was set on a chair in our circle and plugged into the stereo speakers. At first we sat around it and talked to the computer, rather stiltedly, but later on, as she joined in the conversations, it was like she was really there--until you remembered it was a computer on the chair and not her. I was very, very happy she was able to join us in this way. The marvels of the modern age!