Mini Mania

Good morning, my friends. It looks as if our weather will clear up a day earlier than expected. I'm looking out my window at bright daylight and blue skies. You can't ask for more than that in Oregon in December. It has been chilly. Recently I realized I was going to need to start wearing my heavier winter coat. My Gore-Tex rain parka is no longer doing the job of keeping me warm.

So just what's going on around here? Well...I finished stitching the last block for Joy in the Ordinary.

It just needed borders. When I headed into the sewing room, I did that first.

Here are all the blocks I have for this quilt now.

This was a free stitch-along from Jenny of Elefantz. I always enjoy her annual small stitch-along projects. She's made some decisions about changes to her blog recently, and so I'm hoping she'll still do another of her small stitch-alongs next year. 

The kitties joined me in the sewing room. These next two pictures had laser eyes when I took them off the camera. I've realized I can fix their eyes with the red-eye correction in Photoshop Elements. It makes their pupils round, however, which makes their eyes look a little weird. Still, they look better than laser eyes, IMHO. I only mention this in case those of you with sharp eyes get to wondering what's going on with these weird-eyed cats.

Can you paws your activities long enough to tell me what we're making today?

Oh, Smitty...is she still working on that meownstrous mini quilt?

Oh...well if its just this little thing, then please purrmit me to assist you.

Of course, as soon as the mini quilt pieces came out, she fled the room. You might recall I needed to remake one of the strip sets for the mini. I'd left these pieces ready to be sewn together.

When all four strip sets were the proper length, I could sew them into these little blocks.

The blocks looked terribly complicated in the picture included with the instructions. They're actually pretty simple. Just four of the same set of strips sewn together pinwheel style.

Just to be sure, I made a sample block before I started sewing everything together.

There were nine of those. All sewn together, I had a finished quilt top. It finishes at 15-1/2 inches square.

These are kind of fun to make occasionally. My goal is just practice for cutting and piecing accuracy. This one looks pretty good. I can see a few places where the seams want to curve a little or else get wider or narrower in spots. Still, I'm pretty happy with this. Mostly, I'm happy to have it finished. Today I'll cut a back for it, and then it will go on the Small-Quilts-to-be-Quilted pile. There are a couple of projects in line ahead of it.

Today I'll be doing a little baking. I'm going to bake some Cranberry Ecstasy Bars. This is a copy-cat recipe of Starbucks' Cranberry Ecstasy Bars from our local newspaper. I only make half the recipe and bake it in a 9 x 9-inch baking dish. It's a very good copy-cat, and I happen to love those bars from Starbucks, although it's been quite some time since I've been to a Starbucks. And that reminds me that I still haven't had my one annual white chocolate peppermint mocha. Maybe on Tuesday. I have to go pick up my camera from the camera shop. (It was getting a spa treatment. Why should sewing machines get all the fun?) Maybe I'll stop off at a Starbucks for my one annual treat.

On the sewing front, I'm going to tackle the quilting for Calendula Patterdrip's Cottage today. It's a large quilt, and so it will probably take me several days to a week to get it all finished.

I'll probably do some dot-to-dot style quilting in the pieced quilt blocks. I'll either outline or add details to the embroidery, and I think some quilted spiderwebs and spiders are called for. It shouldn't be too difficult to quilt, but I'll have to limit my time to avoid breaking myself. I'll use a splint to take some of the strain off my wrist, but it's awkward quilting that way. So, I'll probably continue on with some of my other projects when I need to take a break from quilting. 

Next up to be pieced is the "Seasons" quilt, and so I'll probably get a start on that.

This being Sunday morning, I'll be making our Sunday morning pancakes. And then I'll take the first stitches on Walk the Dog. 

It's hooped up and waiting for me downstairs...and you know how a dog is when it's time for a walk. No patience whatsoever. 

So there's plenty to keep me busy on this Sunday. How are you keeping busy today?