Happy Galentine’s Day!

If you are not familiar with Galentine’s Day, do yourself a favor and watch Parks and Recreation.  My husband and I watched the series over the past year or so, and it is a relaxing dose of silliness written by smart people.  Don’t you miss TV shows with smart writers?

You can find a clip of Leslie explaining Galentine’s Day here.  Galentine’s day is the day before Valentine’s day, and is meant to celebrate our lady friends, with brunch.  I think this would be a perfect quilt guild event for next year.  Hmmm.  I’ll have to do some research and bring it up at a meeting.
As an Island Batik Ambassador, my first challenge was to create a Galentine’s Day mug rug.  It’s a good thing mug rugs are small, because I only opened my box two days ago.  Luckily, my fellow ambassadors have been sharing their boxes and blogs, so my creative juices were already flowing.  I decided to use a block from my recently released Windows to My Heart pattern, but to tweak it just a bit.

All of the fabrics you see here are from my Island Batik Ambassador box, from the Galentine’s Day fat quarter bundle.  I used Hobb’s batting and Aurifil thread, along with an antique button from my grandmother’s button box.
I used a 9″ background square, a bit smaller than the original, so that I wouldn’t lose the bottom tip of the heart or so much of the top curves.  I layered everything right onto my longarm machine.  (My domestic is giving me fits this week.)  I was so excited I didn’t take enough in-progress shots for a good tutorial.
I did wavy lines on the bias edges this time – they remind me of the valentines I used to make with paper doilies.

I quilted it simply, with “Be Mine.”  I marked it first with a chalk pencil, then followed the markings.  That is my actual handwriting.  Some days I like it.  I love the way the mini looks with the sunlight shining through the quilting.

My hibiscus is still valiantly trying to keep summer alive.
This was the first of many projects I will be doing with my Island Batik Fabrics this year.  I couldn’t be more excited.  Stay tuned – I have another project coming up this month.
There are 44 other Island Batik ambassadors this year.  If you are curious, you can see what they are all up to this year.  We are a dynamic group.  (Special Thanks to Laura at Slice of Pi Quilts for the great list.)