Fleece Jacket for daughter-in-law

I decided to try my hand with a fleece jacket for my daughter-in-law and gray is one of her favorite colors as is purple and when I ran across the combination of gray with purple flowers I believed it to be a perfect combination.

My main problem is if you just mention the word "ZIPPER" - I break out in a cold sweat!!!!!!!!!!! For some reason a zipper seems like a monster to me who lurks in my creativity and turns me into a limp noodle of fear. But they always tell you to face your fear - so I did and the project really went well for me . The zipper practically put itself in place for me  and I was really careful about keeping the bottom nice and even. One thing I did not like about the pattern was that it has a interfacing along the inside zipper and the way the pattern left it - it was just kinda flapping in the wind????? So, I went ahead and seamed it all the way from the top to the bottom seam and I loved the result, it laid nice and flat now and gave it kind of a "more together" look.

I am always on the search for Christmas presents and I ran across this link today:http://with-heart-and-hands.blogspot.com/2008/02/how-to-make-heart-shaped-hotpad.html
She has a tutorial about how she makes heart-shaped hotpads. I really do enjoy projects where you can use smaller pieces of left over fabrics to  make something that can be useful instead of something to just catch dust. LOL

I hope all of you are making good progress on your Christmas list . It seems like time just takes off flying when it comes to this time of year! If only I had a few more extra minutes tucked away somewhere?????