February Mini

 Back in 2016 I made "Memories of Astoria", a special quilt for my husband who spent his early college years in that little town near the mouth of the Columbia River.  You can read more about the inspiration for creating this quilt here.

While making that quilt I made two versions of the "fish through the porthole" block.  The first one ended up being a little too large for the space so rather than ripping and cutting down the background an identical but smaller version was created for the quilt and the first became an orphan block.  While digging through a bin of fabrics last month I unearthed said orphan and decided this was the year it would become a finished mini quilt. 

It was just a matter of adding another round of borders to bring the block to a placemat size.  The circles were hand appliqued, so I decided to hand quilt around each of the fish, then a bit of machine quilted clumps of beach grass and stitch in the ditch for the borders, and it is finally finished.  

Some fresh-fallen snow on a sunny late afternoon provided another view in a different setting and light.

We're bracing for yet another snow-ice-freezing rain storm tomorrow.  It's been a wild-weather February with everything from record low to high temperatures, snowstorms, ice jams and major flooding, with a few sunny days to give us hope that spring will eventually arrive.  The first robins and red-wing blackbirds made an appearance yesterday.  I may go out and look for any sign of daffodils poking through the ground before tomorrow's snow covers them yet again.

Be sure to check out Wendy's (The Constant Quilter) post on the 28th for more February minis.  

Til next time, happy stitching!