A New Mini and Hopefully a New Friend!

Do you ever surf flickr and find an image that takes you to a blog and before you know it, 3 hours have passed? That happened a few weeks ago. I stumbled on this photo

The photo took me to Carol's blog (mamacjt). I don't know why her blog wasn't on my radar before. I was actually a swap partner of  hers a few years ago in the Mug Rug Swap. This is the beautiful mug rug (and goodies!) she sent me. 

If I had added her as a contact right then and there and I wouldn't have missed out on so much eye candy/inspiration. Carol is a true artist, and brings her incredible talents to everything she sews. I literally spent several hours going through the archives of her blog. Among other things, she creates these amazing quilt portraits. You know what, just pop over there right now and see what I mean.

Hey, glad you came back. I know, right? Such good stuff.

Anyway, I was inspired to copy create a mini based on one of hers. I've wanted to play with some scrappy, solid, improve blocks. This is what I came up with.

So different for me. Carol's came out about 12" square. Mine, not so much. More like 18. I like it though. Learned a lot. Like if I can't press toward the solid, I really should trim back those solid seams so they don't creep into the white. Or better yet, go with a grey background. And I think I should have extended the echo quilting over the entire background. What ev. Hubby's claimed it. He wants it hanging in the bathroom. Can't imagine why.