Dec 15 13

Mug Rug Mania!

Why does life predictably get so busy from mid-November to January 1st?  It really doesn’t seem to matter how much you’ve prepared ahead of time, or even if you’ve deliberately lessened your schedule…this is simply a very frenetic time of year!  I am still rushing to finish making a number of mug rugs to give away as gifts.  I’ve been making a  few different types.  First up are some mug rugs that feature simple geometric shapes with free motion embroidery to finish the edges:
Mug-Rug-1A
I had a few that I was fusing all at once, and when I laid them all out next to one another, it really told me I needed to make a quilt using some of the same design ideas:
 
MR2A
I used the EKG edge finishing design to finish all the raw edges.  For the most part, I pretty much matched the thread color with the background color on these.  I don’t usually do that, but the design was so simple that I thought contrasting threads would distract from the beauty of their simplicity:
 
MR3AMR4A
Next up, I made some mug rug tops embroidered on my embroidery machine.  Here are a few that are from similar designs (there’s a slight variation if you look closely):
 
MRB1
I also made a couple that were “customized” to feature a given person’s “favorite things.”  Below is one I made today for my niece’s little boy who is 3 years old.  He is obsessed with batman right now:
MRbat3
(I still need to sew down that binding.)  For that one, I did use some contrasting threads for the EKG stitching along the edge of the wings.  I felt like it would heighten the threatening nature of the wings and I think it worked:
 
MRbat1
Normally, I wouldn’t pass up an opportunity like this to add a trapunto layer behind the wings, but I didn’t want to risk making this an unsteady mug rug.  After all, he’s only 3 years old and learning hand/eye coordination.   You can see that because I stitched outside the wings with invisible thread, it kind of has a faux-trapunto look to the wing area:
 
MRbat2
Some of the mug rugs that I embroidered are a little longish, but that works ok if you’re sharing a cuppa with a friend:
 
MR2-cups
(I can’t help but point out those beautiful quilt-themed mugs…do the block designs look familiar?  These are available here in our online store!).  That mug rug they’re sitting on is my favorite one so far.  I just had to have a cup of cocoa using it today before I sent it off to a friend:
 
MRfinal
Here’s hoping you’re getting all your gift-sewing completed!
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3 Comments

  1. SewCalGal Says:

    What a cute bat mat motif! And I love your mugs and mug rugs too. They’d certainly make for a wonderful gift, as well as how perfect for any quilter to enjoy at work or at home.

    SewCalGal
    http://www.sewcalgal.blogspot.com

  2. Jane Riebe-Rodgers Says:

    I’m so glad that other people also feel they just can’t get everything done they want to between November and January 1. I keep telling myself, “Next year, it’ll be different.” It never is, though.

  3. Kelly Jackson Says:

    How is it that you can make simple looking fabrics look so fantastic? You are amazing!!

    Smiles,
    Kelly