No Muppets Were Harmed

My mother was delayed getting to Montana for Christmas. She would have gotten out of Cleveland too late to make her connecting flight in Minneapolis, so she stayed home an extra day and arrived Saturday night instead of Friday night. My sister and DD#2 spent Saturday morning baking cookies, and I re-covered DD#2's vanity stool while waiting to go to the airport to retrieve DD#1. 

It looked like this when I started:

I removed the pink stripe fabric and found the original layer of vinyl underneath:

Once I removed all the staples—a heavy-duty staple remover purchased in the upholstery department at Joann's helped a lot—I was able to use the original pieces of foam and fabric as patterns and cut replacements. I was pretty pleased with the end result and—most importantly—so was DD#2:

The tip to cut only the backing fabric of the faux fur (thank you, John Thomas) was a huge help and kept the mess to a minimum. I need to try sewing with the fur, next, but probably not soon. 

My mother, sister, and the girls and I had our annual spa afternoon on Sunday. I had a massage and the girls had facials. We met the husband afterward for dinner. My voice recovered enough by Monday night for our quartet to sing at the Christmas Eve service at church. We opened presents yesterday morning, ate ourselves silly, then topped it off with "Mary Poppins Returns" in the evening. The movie was a bit saccharine, as expected, but overall very well done and enjoyable. 

I have had the bin of Ritzville quilt HSTs in the living room and have been working on trimming them in odd moments over the past four days. I am about three-fourths of the way through the bin. I'll probably devote New Year's Day to a sewing marathon and start putting blocks together. I'd like to have that top finished by the end of January. 

Everyone but DD#2 leaves tomorrow. She'll be here for a couple more weeks. I have just a few days left in my "vacation" from work and then I need to get back to looking for something to do to make some money.