Resolutions and a new tool

At our last local guild meeting we talked about quilting resolutions for this year, and I thought I would publish mine here for extra boasting when I finish them accountability.

1) Get my sewing machine serviced   DONE! (Saying this was a resolution made me get off my butt and do it right after the meeting.  The feed is greatly improved.)

2) Reduce my UFOs by 5 by the end of the year.  (I tried to count UFOs and came up with 14.  Then I counted again a few days later and came up with 8.  I just made a list right now and came up with 11.  So forget how many I have right now.  Basically I have to finish 5 more things than I start this year.)

And additional resolutions that I didn't share at the meeting:
3) Buy less fabric than I use.  I am instituting a 2 yards out, 1 yard in policy on account as of just last night finally breaking down and expanding my quilting fabric into yet another drawer.  I have a tendency to gather up sets of fabric and then call them an intended quilt.  Next I find someplace to hide them so that they no longer count as part of my fabric stash.  Like... in a stack hidden behind another stack.  In my WIP drawer.  Inside of a shoe box.  In a pile in the dog's closet.  (These are REAL hiding places, people.  I'm not kidding.) Anyway, I gathered those all back up and put them away, and the drawer-space situation is dire.

I told you it was for real.  That's the dog's closet.  And a shoe box.  Also this is after I cleaned up.

 4) Sew 6 items of clothing, or 1 every 2 months.

Now don't be surprised if I play pretty free and loose with these resolutions.  For example, free fabric doesn't count towards my incoming fabric, but if I use it it counts toward my outgoing fabric.  I am grouping WIPs and UFOs together, and finishing either counts toward my goal of 5 (and as outgoing fabric!)  Technically I made my resolution at the beginning of the month so I am already counting finishes and I am up by 2 already, woot!

Also at the meeting, another MQG member turned me on to the Chaco Liner from Clover.  It's like a chalk pencil... but magical.  It dispenses chalk-ish powder over a roller wheel (like one of those whiteout dispensers) so unlike a chalk pencil, you don't have to push hard to make a nice line.  That means that on your stretchy or thin fabrics, you just zip down next to your ruler and don't have that bunching/skipping problem.  When you're done with the line, flick it a few times with a fingertip and the chalk bounces right off the fabric.  I used it the other week to mark the hem on my Taffy Blouse, and it worked great.


Speaking of the Taffy Blouse, I wore it last week.  I used my brains to get around how light the blouse is for our winter weather... by wearing pjs under my pants.  Yeah, I was double-pantsed that day and nobody knew.  Except for me, since I was toasty warm.  I was asked if I got the shirt from Modcloth... and by another person if I had lost weight.  Success, my friends. 

I leave you with a picture of our poor dog, who broke a tooth.  (Who knows how, but the Dog Dentist told us not to let him chew ice anymore.  Aaaaagh!  That's like his favorite thing ever.)  He had to be put under for a few hours to get a root canal.  Afterwards he was totally out of it all evening due to lingering sedative.  It turns out that dogs greatly dislike being high.  He spent hours either staring into space with his tongue out, nodding off sitting up, or wandering around crying sadly (we call it crying when he whines because it sounds cooler (but maybe that's just me)).  He appears to be 100% recovered from this now, so don't fret yourselves.