I love reading Deb Sposa’s Artisun blog and was delighted beyond words by this post:

As a result, I tried making my own teabag mini-quilt. And thinking the deadline was December 14, I got it done yesterday. Of course, now I see the deadline is actually December 22, but with the holiday mail rush, it’s probably a good thing I’m getting it out early.

So, for the record (so I can remember it), here’s the completed piece, front …

and back …

It was a true learning sampler, created by finding a trio of scallop shells that would fit inside a used tea bag …

inserting them and then spritzing the bag with water so I could mold it onto the shells with a brush …

Then lightly stroking Inktense pencil over each shell …

and using the resulting design to guide my stitches.

At first I was afraid the tea bag would tear, so I spaced my stitches far apart …

Seen from the back, it looks like I used a running stitch and a detached back stitch …

I soon realized the tea bag was stronger than I expected, so I made the stitches closer on the second shell …

using more tension to get more defined ridges with stacked running stitch …

Then I went all out on the final shell …

successfully piling on tons of split back stitches …

The “batting” was a bit of cotton flannel that I tea-dyed. To create a hanger, I wrapped the end of the flannel over a bit of beachcombed twig from the Outer Banks of North Carolina. If you look closely you can see one of the barbs …

The bottom edge I worried with a pin, succeeding in getting a look like tangled flotsam …

Then I made a memory patch of teabag over flannel stitched in the same variegated floss as the mini-quilt. I know the tea bag will tear and fall away eventually. Indeed, it already has started to let go …

which seems a proper metaphor.