Old Eyes, Christmas gift making and the Bucket List for this year!

I have old eyes!

It is time to accept that my eyes just can't see some of the things I used to. After Christmas I decided to get out a cross stitch UFO and while looking at it it just didn't seem right. I got out my magnifier and I had missed half the stitch in a whole row and in a few other places too! See if you can see it! 

This is a Santa, all in shades of white and cream. Even with my magnifier I struggle to see the differences in color and the stitches. That UFO has now been tucked away probably for good. 

Then I started a new knitting project using fingering and mohair. Fingering is fine but the mohair... not so good! This will be my last time using it- my old eyes are struggling to see that too!

Now that Christmas is over... here is a gift I made for my dad. He has a big metal rooster he keeps on his deck in the summer. He calls it Foggy ( for Foghorn Leghorn!) so when I saw this pattern I knew I had to make it for him. He loves it! 

It is all English paper pieced and it was quite a production keeping all those pieces in the right order.

It is now proudly hanging in his kitchen!

Here is the Christmas gift I didn't get done. I will get it done soon though. It is a fabulous dragon. It is ready for stuffing now and then assembly. Then the fun part comes with embellishing. Since I no longer have a deadline I can enjoy playing with my beads and threads and other shiny things!

And I have been making progress in this quilt! I have all the foundation piecing done that I am going to do. I'm not crazy about the clam shell border so I am skipping that. I will probably have to play with the layout a bit but I am loving all my colors! 

I have been busy trimming so now it is time to sewing the small points to the larger pieces.Then I can start laying it out. 

Now that the new year is here it seemed like a good time to reflect on my UFO's, my bucket list and what projects I want to play with this new year. 

My bucket list for this year is small. I want to learn to back baste applique and I want to make another scrappy quilt with really small pieces (still deciding on that!) 

Here are the two applique patterns I want to make to learn back basting! 

As far as UFO's...the only one causing me trouble is Dear Jane. More about that next time! 

Happy Stitching!