Do you have those days where you really want to do something but can't figure out what? I was having one of those yesterday until I came across this post by Amanda who led me to these posts from Amylouwho and this Flickr group and I decided that what I wanted to do was make a mini quilt. I even had the perfect thing to get me started.

Several years ago I took a sashiko class and a half finished sashiko block had been hanging out in my sewing room ever since. I stumbled across it when I was looking for projects to take to BC and tossed it in my suitcase with a needle and a ball of purl cotton. I spent an afternoon finishing it up and it was fun to watch the pattern emerge in the white thread. I'd figured I could make it into a trivet or a pot holder when we got home. So that's what I did.

I grabbed some scraps of batting and a cute cherry blossom print for the back and sandwiched them all together. I ran a line of quilting about a quarter inch from the white thread all the way around the design. The binding was some more leftovers (I'm not even sure from what) that I thought looked nice. The final touch was to put one of my labels on the back and give it a good pressing. Now I've got something special to put under my teapot.