Let's Book It: February Finish

As the month was coming to a close, it seemed unlikely I would finish my Let's Book It project for February. No finishes are required for the Let's Book It challenge, but I'm trying not to add any more projects to my to-do list until I get some of the larger and older ones pared down. For Let's Book It, I've been focusing my attention on small quilts and table runners. For February, it made sense to do something for Valentine's Day, and so I chose this free pattern from Sherri Falls at Little Bits of This & That.

It was quick to make, and with the exception of the rick rack, I had everything I needed to finish it in my sewing room stash. It's a quilt as you go project, and when I picked it up yesterday, I had already partly sewn the strips for the quilt top. I was able to finish those in just a few minutes.

After that, it was time to fuse the hearts onto the quilt top and topstitch them. This being a quilt as you go project, the buttonhole stitching was going to show on the quilt back, and so I pulled the bobbin thread to the top as you would for free motion quilting.

I stitched the first large red heart.

Then, just to be sure I liked it, I checked the back before stitching the five remaining hearts.

It looked fine to me, and so I continued on. When all six were top-stitched, it looked like this. I wish I'd used a brighter pink for those pink hearts, but that gets a big "oh well" from me.

The next task was to stitch the rick rack to the edge, flange style. I'd never done that before, but the instructions told me to use a 1/8-inch seam allowance and to cut off the excess at the edges of the quilt. Okay, done. That was easy enough.

And then I machine sewed the binding. I used that same red polka dot from the strips. You might remember I took up the issue with Quilting Treasures when they tried to claim copyright of polka dots a couple of years ago.

That was as far as I went yesterday. This morning, it took me about an hour to hand-stitch the binding, and my little table runner was finished. It measures 16 x 38 inches.

Here's how it looks from the back.

It occurs to me that it would be simple enough to make a St. Patrick's Day runner from this pattern by simply substituting green and white fabrics and shamrocks for the hearts. Hmmmmmmmm.

So anyway, it's now taken up residence on my breakfast bar, which was always its intended home.

Yes, it's a little late for Valentine's Day, but it's never too late to celebrate love, is it?

It was such a lovely afternoon that Smitty and I took the opportunity to sit on the back deck for a while. He's always willing to go outside, rain or shine, but when the humans come out... oh my. Happy, happy, joy, joy!

I left the door open just in case Maggie wanted to join us. She has shown almost no interest in going outside since she came to live with us, although she was willing to go outside on the catio while we were traveling. At home, she runs away when the door opens. Still, we've been giving her every opportunity if she decides she wants to brave the cold, cruel world again.

Well. Don't you think Himself sat up and took notice when she did that...because all of the outside...and I'm talking the entire world just happens to be his territory. Any questions?

I was a little worried he might chase her off down into the woods or up a tree or something, and so I shut this little excursion down pretty quickly.

We'll try it again another time. I'd like to know she has figured out the kitty door before getting too far ahead of ourselves.

This morning I'm going out for a walk as soon as I finish this post. Then, I have an appointment for a perm...my most hated personal care activity. My perm is looking terrible, however, and so I'm willing to sit through this hour and a half of waterboarding. My hairdresser used a different perm last time she did it, and it seems to have completely vanished in the intervening period. I've asked her to go back to the original one.

If I have time to sew this afternoon, I'm going to get started on my Stars & Stripes flimsy, which will be made from some bee blocks I collected last May. I had almost forgotten these blocks, and then found them in a drawer recently. There are 12 of these pinwheel stars with the blue center pinwheel.

One of the bees in the hive made her blocks in reverse. She remade them correctly, but she also sent me the ones that were made wrong. I'll use these on the quilt back.

I have just a vague notion of how I'm going to set these. These are my "for sure" fabrics.

And these are my "maybe" fabrics.

And when it's all finished, I'll be as surprised as you at how it turns out.

So that's my day. I'm ready for it to be a good day...except for the perm, but I'm not going to think about that for now.