Year End Resolutions

Every year when I look the next year in the eye I make a mad rush to fulfill some of the goals I set for myself at the beginning of the current year. I vaguely remember this year's resolutions as eat less, move more, stop buying thread, fabric and craft papers. I have been moving more and eating less which has resulted in a 15 pound weight loss. I have not stopped buying thread, fabric or craft papers. Heck, I bought a new embroidery machine this year and you have to buy special thread for that and lots of fabric to try out different embroideries, right? Craft papers are just too luscious to resist with all the colors and textures.

Seeing that I have a 60% failure rate I have decided to add a belated resolution for 2007. My new goal for 2007 is to finish UFO's. Finishing includes completing the project as it was originally intended, or re-doing a project so that it has a different end result or deciding to toss a project that no longer has a desired goal. I don't know about you but there things in this house that I just keep moving out of sight so I do not have to confront my inate laziness.

My first UFO confrontation was a couple of days ago. Before I moved to Texas I took a class at a local fabric shop in Rochester, New York. The three session class was held to learn how to make a reversible bog coat and my goal was to learn how to make a simple garment. The very first class was a problem as the teacher said I was too tall and too fat to make a traditional bog coat. Talk about an embarassing moment! At the time I was pretty thin but 39" hips, even if all bone, are not abnormal and since when did 5'7" become tall? Any way, I made it through two classes and blew off the third. Although I have shown this jacket at a couple of neighborhood groups one of the cuffs was hanging loose as I had missed sewing some of the seams. I have been messing with it ever since and yesterday I finally fixed the last problem I had with one of the cuffs. Here it is in all its glory -the dark side:

- the light side:

All seams are securely fastened and Alex has given it his seal of approval by taking a nap on it this morning. A couple of things you might be interested in are the inserts. The dark side has Afghani piecing and the light side has Seminole piecing. The Afghani piecing took a ton of time as you have to do it all in order... one little seam at a time. I also ran out of fabric so the back of the neck has no piecing on it. The Seminole piecing I did on the serger as I had no confidence in my ability to sew a quarter inch seam. I ended up with a ton of it and still have a couple of feet left over even after adding the patch pockets. BTW - The dark side has in-seam pockets.

One UFO down...1,675,345 left to go!