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:
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:
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:
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):
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:
(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:
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:
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:
(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:
Here’s hoping you’re getting all your gift-sewing completed!
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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
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.
How is it that you can make simple looking fabrics look so fantastic? You are amazing!!
Smiles,
Kelly