UFO sighting at finish line

I feel like Miss Adelaide in "Guys and Dolls" perpetually engaged to Nathan Detroit for fourteen loyal years with no wedding in sight. And then finally in the last act, closure!

I started cross stitch fourteen or fifteen years ago when I was in college. I learned one afternoon while staying with a friend. Her sister visited and she taught me to stitch, doing one small red fox I have somewhere. Her then-husband taught me backstitching. I graduated to the occasional leaflet on Aida, including a pair of Pocket Dragon patterns from Crazy Crafts, "Five More Minutes" and "Scary Book".

Somewhere along the line I lost my copies of both patterns, so neither of them ever were completed. They became in the parlance of stitching UFOs - unfinished objects.

I despaired of ever finishing them when I came upon the patterns again at a media convention. Someone was selling a bunch of cross-stitch and needlework charts, so I bought both. I came upon both the charts and the UFOs over the last week while I was sorting through my stash. So hey, I needed a break from the Mirabilias, so I opted to finish "Five More Minutes". voila the little Pocket Dragon can now have his nap. Or at least hit the snooze alarm a few times in my honor...

"Scary Book" is a sibling UFO and hopefully that one will get finished in due course. In retrospect, I wish I'd done that one on navy fabric, because there's a lot of background to stitch on that pattern.