7 Days of New Years --- Day 2: A Slight Detour For a Gift

Today was a little busy.  I was supposed to meet with a neighbor to get some information on potential contractors.  Unfortunately my neighbor felt a cold or flu coming on so that meeting was postponed.  This freed some time to find a box and pack up the peanut butter cookies I baked yesterday for my MIL and her sister.  It is an annual tradition that I send them some to munch on during the holidays. 

Since I'd be shipping a package, I also needed to finish up something that needed to go along with it.  Back in March, DH and I had visited my MIL and while there I had helped her make a batik version of Pat Sloan's "String Beans" Block-a-Day design.  

My MIL's "String Bean" blocks

When it was done I picked up all the small aqua and cream scrappy bits and planned to make a commemorative mug rug for it.  

After that I was stumped for the longest on how to quilt it and what color threads to use (All Cream?  All Turquoise?  Change threads?).  Then as I went to bed last night, I had a brainstorm for it:  monofilament thread!  Taking cues from all the angles of the piecing, I stuck with straight-line quilting and got it done. 

Good thing the "West Wing" marathon was still on!  DH and I watched (well, I listened) while I stitched.  Stitching done, we broke to set up jerk chicken to marinate for dinner then it was on to prepping binding.  For that I got to use a new gadget:

Got to admit, this "Binding Eaze" by the Quilted Heartz ladies makes for easy pressing of the binding and keeps your fingers from the hot iron.  Once the binding was attached, everything was ready to be packed up for shipping to North Carolina. 

My MIL is doing the Fat Quarter Shop "Sewcialites 2" Quilt Along.  She normally doesn't like small blocks but is trying her hand at the 9" ones so I bought her a surprise gift of the logo charm to support her efforts.  

Then it was on to making dinner and then eating and watching the "Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring" we taped yesterday (neither of us have seen it before).  I had hoped to have finished the mug rug earlier so I could also get back to quilting the Fat Quarter Disappearing Nine Patch today.  It's late now so I think that will have to wait until tomorrow!