I never did sit down and work out any New Year's resolutions.  The whole holiday season went by way too quickly for any sort of reflection or introspection, which is not a good thing.  Time to think and plan is important, and I don't seem to have had any. On New Year's Eve Doug, Bev, Mereth and I were watching episodes of The Virginian and totally missed the moment when it became 2012.  So we didn't even toast the New Year, which is good, because I was stopped and breathalysed on the way home, and it would have been very embarrassing to have been over the limit!

It's been interesting to read other blogger's New Year posts, and find my own thoughts echoed.  I agree with a lot of what Carrie says in her Clean Slate post;  it's so hard to choose a direction and then stick to it, hard to know what to choose to spend time on, and it's scary sometimes too.  But without new directions and the willingness to take a risk, life just become more of the same old stuff that didn't thrill the first time around.

My word for this year is Consider.  Instead of stumbling along without any real thought about what I'm doing, I want to take time to look at options, choose what I need to do, think about the consequences, plan a course of action, enjoy the rewards.  I'm tired of life just swirling by in a mad rush, and grabbing at opportunites, rushing to fill obligations or regretting what I didn't get round to.  And I want to be more considerate of other people too, spend more time with friends and family and have a stockpile of good times to look back on. The way life is now, I mostly just work, and that's not always fun.

I need a plan for my quilting, a list of new projects and a schedule for my UFOs.  I'm certainly not disciplined enough to do one a month; if I'm in UFO mode then I want to finish three or four all at once.  So I will just list what I would like finished by the end of the year, and dedicate some time to that; I'll group them by the amount of work needed to get them to a completed top, and then try to spread them out during the year, so that I do one major one and three or four smaller ones at a time. 

And quite a few are going to be abandoned or repurposed.  I still need runners and tablecloths and potholders, so that's where some blocks will end up.  I love seeing a whole heap of things finished, I've really enjoyed the times in the past where I dedicated myself to completing stuff, so I look forward to doing it again now.

As for new projects, I want to make gorgeous quilts from my 'good' stash.  I've spent years making scrap quilts, donation quilts, utility quilts, Use-it-up quilts, and now I want to make quilts that I'm proud of, ones that I would like to be associated with.  Time to finish an applique quilt, instead of just starting the blocks.  Time to piece something intricate and original.  Maybe design a stitchery quilt, or a celtic knot.  Maybe I won't get time for any of that,  but it's fine to have all those new projects as goals.  Aim high and far, and see where I end up.