Happy Anniversary to us

Last night was our book club anniversary celebration. Three years and counting of some good reading with some great friends. Once again, we exchanged our book-related anniversary gifts after rating our reads (14 books) for the year -- The Book Thief was ranked number 1 by each of us. Yes, that should be a clear message for you to read it. The fact that Mary's number 2 was my number 14, shows there are no guarantees we'll all share the same impression of our reading selections.

The gifts I gave reflected my two favorite books; The Book Thief and Little Bee. As it happened, the day we met at Stevens Point's Wooden Chair restaurant to discuss Little Bee, Mary ordered her usual tea. The honey she was served came in the cutest little honey pot.

It was so cute, in fact, that I ordered three of them as soon as I got home that day ... and an anniversary gift plan was hatched.

First, I made some hexagons and pretended in this blog post that there was no definite plan for them, which really is the case for the little pile of them still in the baggie. Next, I gathered up all of my "word" fabric and found a nice variety for the petals the Dresden Plate that was forming in my brain. The following Saturday's quick run to the Cotton Thimble in Wisconsin Rapids evened out the black on white fabrics with a musical print to honor Papa from The Book Thief, a bee print for the backing, and things were on their way.

I'm not sure I would approach this in the same sequence again, but after having the hexagons and petals assembled, the hexagon centers were hand appliqued to the plates; the Dresden plates in turn were hand appliqued to background. Of course, that could have been done by machine, but one of the rewards of this project was the reminder of how much I enjoy the look and feel of hand applique and these were just the right size to enjoy the process without becoming overwhelmed. After cutting away the excess background fabric to eliminate bulk, the Dresden plates were layered (right sides together) with the backing and batting and stitched together.

After turning right side out and pressing, the table mats were machine quilted. That's right. No binding. (I do placemats the same way and really like the less bulky finish for table use.)
Fun little projects that make me look forward to another year of books to inspire our next anniversary celebration gift exchange.