A completely non-sewing weekend

We spent the weekend full of holiday cheer with family and friends all over south and east Texas.  I'll spare you the gory details, but suffice it to say, my sewing machine hasn't even been turned on since Thursday, and NO progress has been made on my jeans.  I did get a bit of Christmas knitting done during the many hours of driving.  I also got a chance to see my sister, who unloaded her unused knitting supplies on me!

Wow!!  Needles and hooks of many sizes, a couple of circular needles, counters, stitch markers - all sorts of fun stuff!!  How great is that?!  I can't wait to play with those big fat needles!
I also got my shipment of soil separator, which I am pretty excited about, except for the fact that it obviously came from a hardware store...

Both rolls are covered with surface grime, and one has a dirt mark that runs through several layers.  Yuck!  I know that the intended purpose of this material is to bury in the ground, so dirt doesn't matter, but I don't want dingy patterns on nice fabric!  I had to unroll several yards of each roll before it was clean enough to satisfy me.  So, I can't say that I recommend True Value as a good source for pattern quality soil separator.  But, despite tossing at least 4 yards of the stuff, I suspect that this supply will last me several months, so I'll just have to keep you posted if I find a better place to order from.  I think I'll try amazon.com next.  The shipping was quite reasonable.
Hopefully, I'll get some time to work on my jeans over the next few days, but with the holidays upon us, it'll be slow going.  Both my family and Mitch's will be here for Christmas.  I'm really excited about that, but it means that I will have just that much less time to sew.