Thanks, everyone! Even my practice pieces came out well, so I'm going to give the nice one to one of my cousins. It is rather nice to be making something that is useful.
The success has, of course, gone to my head. Because I actually think it might be possible to make a Christmas tablemat for another cousin between now and Thursday. And bake a pie. If I stopped fooling around with the Internets and started ironing it could happen.