The products featured in this post were given to me by Island Batik, including products from Hobbs and Aurifil.

My second project as an Island Batik Ambassador was to make a small Valentine for a friend. I opted to make two mug rugs in honor of Galentine’s Day, a celebration of some of my best gal pals.

 

I chose to use four of the fabrics from my Valentine's Island Batik bundle. As soon as I saw the bundle I knew I had to feature the print on the top (which I think is Mixed Berry Mini Dots from the Plum Delicious collection). That's how I chose it for my background fabric. I chose the pale pink for my hearts to contrast the dark tones of the background.

I pieced two sizes of heart blocks. The smaller ones fit in the palm of my hand. I opted for a triple heart in the small size heart blocks for one mug rug and used a single larger heart for the other mug rug. I like the idea of the main design of a mug rug to be on an edge or corner so it can still be enjoyed even with a mug and a snack in place.

I used the same ultra-thin polyester Thermore Hobbs batting that I used in my last quilt. I'm not sure polyester is the best choice for a mug rug, (anyone have thoughts on that?) but I like the idea that it'll stay flat and not get crinkly when washed. I used one layer of the batting on my triple heart mug rug, and on my single heart mug rug I doubled the batting and added a third layer under the heart. On that quilt, I started the quilting by stitching the perimeter of the heart, then I cut away the third layer of batting as shown below. This gave the heart just a little more puff to it, especially once I added the dense quilting to the background. It's subtle, but I like it.

 

I opted for loops and hearts on this first mug rug and went for pretty dense all over quilting in the background. This was my first time using Aurifil 40wt thread. The Antique Rose (#2430) from my ambassador box was a perfect choice to contrast my background fabric. I the second mug rug I omitted the hearts from my design and used a slightly larger scale loop motif.

In order to incorporate two more fabrics I made a flange binding. I pieced the cream and pink fabrics for a pink binding with a cream flange. The binding was attached by machine with a Light Beige (#2310) 50wt Aurifil from my stash.

 

These are my 12th and 13th quilt finishes in 2018. The triple heart mug rug finished at 10.5" x 8" and the single heart mug rug is about 10" x 7.75".

 

Check out some of the other Galentine's Day projects by my fellow Island Batik Ambassadors.

Myra @ Busy Hands Quilts

Steph @ Steph Jacobson

Jeanette @ Inchworm Fabrics

Connie @ Kauffman Designs

Joan @ Moosestash Quilting

Maryellen @ Mary Mack Made Mine

Jackie @ If These Threads Could Talk

Laura @ Slice of Pi Quilts

Annie @ Masterpiece Quilting

 

Next month's Island Batik Ambassador challenge is to try a technique that is new to us. Maybe I should have saved my flange binding for next month! ;-) I'm looking for ideas. Leave me a comment below with your ideas for a new technique for me to try.

 

SaveSave

SaveSave