Happy New Year!

I did stay up until midnight! Actually, there was a Thin Man Marathon on TCM, and I do love William Powell and Myrna Loy, separately or together.

And I made a momentous decision last night.

This year, I have made resolutions.

I know, I know, they last about 20 seconds. But since these involved working with my needle, I may be able to keep them.

For the last few years, I've resolved to stitch whatever I felt like whenever I felt like it and that's what I've done. But as I've been thinking about the past year, I've realized I'm not getting the projects finished that bring me the greatest joy. It's been a hit-or-miss proposition--I give things a day or two, then I pick up and put down something else. After getting my Medicare card a few weeks ago, I've also realized that I don't have another 40 years to do needlework ahead of me, so I better hitch up the Granny panties and accomplish some goals.

Herewith are the 2018 resolutions:

• Get Mary Otter finished
• However, to give myself a break once in a while, I can take Sundays off to do a different project, just for a change of scenery and something a little different to blog about.
• Once Mary Otter is finished, figure out a rotation system that will work for me and stick to it
• However, there will be an exception to the rotation. When I take a workshop or class, I hereby give myself permission to continue working on the class project once I'm home from the workshop.  I've done this maybe half a dozen times in the last twenty years, and I've always been happy that I did. Of all the wonderful workshops I've taken in the last year, only one is done. This has to end.

Notice that I don't have a list of specific projects. That will come later, after Mary Otter has her last stitch. I've started jotting down the things I'd like to do, like Amy Mitten's Casket Toys, and Frances Burwell, and the mirror surround from the Casket of Curiosities class as well as starting on my double casket--but those are just ideas and not set in stone.

Anyway, instead of a new New Year's start, I'm going to plop myself in the wing chair and lay some more bricks on Mary Otter.

This is where she is at the moment. With any luck, I'll have a couple more rows of bricks worked in before I have to get back into the night-before-a-work-day routine.

And, in closing, I hope you all are having a lovely day with needle in hand. And I'm happy to see so many lapsed bloggers writing again.  I've missed reading so many blogs in the last year, and I'm glad to see their owners writing again.