Is it just me or has January been a bit of a blur? I’ve had quite the perfect storm of work stress, video game addiction, and just all around lack of mojo. I’ve not really felt like crafting most days and so have fallen back into a certain game over and over. I’ll confess, I do love of Stardew Valley and I’ve appreciated the distraction.

I’ve certainly piddled around the sewing room, both Josehphine (sewing machine) and Paggy (serger) got a serious cleaning. I even rethreaded Peggy from scratch — for the first time… it wasn’t as bad as I expected. And then one evening after supper, Astra asked if we could do a little sewing because she had an idea. Tough to say no to that. So we lit a candle, turned on some tunes, and got down to business. She wanted to cut the fabric this time, so I cut strips and she cut the squares. A bit harrowing, but we made it out alive. While she sewed, I decided to play around with some scraps and see if I had what I wanted for a cool mini quilt tutorial I had come across.

The kids were a bit horrified at this scene, but I love it. I have tons of strips of all sizes leftover from my Norah quilt, ends of fat quarters, and even the packaging from some fabric orders! I had decided to try out this tutorial for a mini scrap quilt by Amy Smart. It’s foundation paper pieced and pretty darned fun. It took me far longer to arrange the scraps than to sew them down.

I fussed around with this for quite a while before I started sewing. I finished my first block right as Astra finished her quilt top. She likes to sew fast, wonder where she learned that? Anyway, this was her idea: a checkerboard table topper for the cats to sit on.

I kept on sewing; the cats had already settled into little scrap nests so there was no way I could leave that mess laying around for another night. By the time I was ready to turn in, I had all four blocks complete.

Cute, huh? Gosh I love a good pastel. Well, so this tutorial has you make these blocks, then cut them apart, rearrange, and sew them back together. Classic quilter stuff, there. Cut it up and sew it back together differently! Anyway, the effect is just darling, and much, much easier than making 16 little blocks!

Astra and I found a half yard of some soft pink fabric in my stash, so we split it into fat quarters to use for the backing for our quilts. She’s still working on quilting hers, but I went ahead and did a 1″ diagonal grid for mine. I’m really pleased with how the quilting turned out. I also machine bound it, which I think I’m getting better at.

Voila! There she is, the first mini of the #yearofminis. I love how it turned out and I’m especially pleased to have a few favorite fabrics included. I’m sometimes hesitant to use up scraps like those honey bears, but just a little 4″ piece and I get to look at them on my wall as long as I want. This honestly makes me want to dive into more scrap quilting. I’m trying to resist starting any more long-term projects, so be on the lookout for more scrappy minis this year!

In other news, I’ve been doing teensy bits on other things. The crochet blanket has seen a few stripes and I’m trying to spend a bit of time here and there prepping applique pieces. I really like the applique technique that Lori Holt uses, it makes it pretty easy to get the shapes right — but the prep is kind of a beast. It takes me quite a while and that’s been part of my stumbling block on this project. So I’m trying to eat the frog first on this one and get all the applique prepped so I can just stitch stitch stitch on it once I’m done.

Well, dear reader, that is that. Not much going on around here, but that’s ok. Sometimes I get a bit overly productivity minded with crafting, so I’m working on being kind to myself about just not feeling like it lately. The mojo always comes back and I’ll be here when she does.

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Happy making!