Oh, I can't describe how excited I am. I have been thinking about making little soft houses for my stuffed animals, and happened upon this blog with a tutorial for one. I have to share it here with you. You can use buttons, velcro or ribbon to close it up! I can not wait to make one! I had thought about just making a soft one with batting for walls, but Dawn had the great idea of using some of the plastic canvas used for cross stitching for support.
She also has a great blog and some other tutorials.
For all you looking fo rnew project/gift/craft ideas for 2009. Visit TheLongThread's blog. They have a list of "Top 100 Tutorials of 2008" . The list is even conveniently sectioned to baby, kids, home, clothing, etc. Too many cool things to do, so little time! 
I also need to mention my Christmas present. I got a book titled Two-at-a-time Socks. I already completed my first pair! Now let me tell you why I like this new way of sewing: First, I normally dont use a pattern and just knit trying to socks on for size every once in a while. That normally backfires by the time I get to the second sock, since I am constantly going to the first one and counting rows and stitches. They always end up being slightly different sizes.
Second, before, after I had finished the first sock, I had no inspiration left to make the second one. Third, this book has very clearly written directions, so everything was easy to follow.
To start my socks, I first knit them regularly on 4 straight needles, about 3 times around, before transferring them onto a single long needle. After I got the hang of it, knitting this new way a as easy as a snap of a fingers.
