Improv patchwork potholder

You still have time to make a small gift or two.  Really.  I know this because I sat down at the sewing machine yesterday with the bag of scraps at my feet and pieced together this little number in about an hour.  I picked two scraps off the top of the pile and just started adding others in the same color family. I was planning on staying with the blues/greens/golds until I accidentally grabbed a tiny pink-ish scrap.  It was the happy accident that this needed so I added two more pink bits and that ribbon loop for hanging.  Two layers of batting (one insulated, one not), a back and a little quilting - good to go.

I love how freeing improvisational patchwork is.  You just grab fabrics and start sewing.  I need to remind myself of this to battle my tendency to over-think.  I'd like to be less restrained with fabric and design in 2011.