Tag Archives: mug rug

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Six for six! This little quilt completes season 12 of Project QUILTING. And true to form, I waited until the last 24 hours of the one-week challenge to get started. And as you know, the later I start, the smaller the quilt gets. ;-)

This week's challenge is Ab Intra, or "from within." At first glance, I think the theme is a little intimidating. But really, there are so many options. So far, there have been a variety of deep, personal, or lighthearted submissions.

It was hard for me to roll over the one year mark of being home during the pandemic this week. Beyond the general stress of the pandemic and the waiting for our turns in the vaccination line, there are numerous things that have been weighing on me recently. I told a friend I may just make a quilt of this emoji: ???? (the head exploding), because that’s it what’s inside a lot of the time these days. I consider this little improv quilt to be the fabric equivalent of that idea. I had no plan, just grabbing a couple solids to get started and moving between the sewing machine and the cutting table as I worked.

My quilt finished at 5" x 6 1/2". I used Aurifil 50 wt Desert Dawn Variegated (#4648) for my quilting and binding, chosen because it was leftover from another project and already had a bobbin wound. It was backed and bound with remnants. (One of the best parts of smaller quilts is the likelihood that I have remnant binding made that will work for the project.) I quilted with a zig zag meander, one of my favorites. This quilt marks Day 50 of my 100 Days of Free Motion Quilting. (I'm overdue on sharing on the blog, but I've been posting daily on Instagram @sarahgoerquilts.)

A shadowy pic to show off the texture:

Plenty big for my water cup and room for a snack!

Be sure to hop over to see the other entries this week!

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

It's been a busy month of sewing... but not so much in the writing department. I have lots that I need to get onto the blog to share with you. Today I'm sharing the three mug rugs I finished this morning. As I finished up the binding before school it struck me that it would make more sense to be putting the finishing touches on costumes, but those were already all in order. Happy Halloween to all who are celebrating.

Our Island Batik theme this month was paper piecing. I opted for three little mug rugs featuring Cricket, Gidget, and Pepper, the Butterfly Charm Blocks by Lillyella.

I opted to use my Paisley Dot Brights 10" squares from my July box for the butterflies. Choosing the color combinations was the hardest part. So many to choose from! I ended up choosing another Island Batik print as inspiration for the palette on each mug rug. I used it for the backing/binding as well as the rectangle to the left of each butterfly block.

This first mug rug features Cricket. This beautiful red print was leftover from my Valentine's Day mug rugs. I couldn't help thinking of the Red Hat Ladies as I worked on this one because of the purple and red paisley dot print.

The orange mug rug features Gidget, and used a sunflower print leftover from my Bold and Brave All About Angles quilt. I had the most fun quilting this one, following the petal on the sunflower print.

The third butterfly is Pepper. She's my favorite. This feature print was also from Morning Sunshine (same as the sunflowers).

On each mug rug I started the quilting by stitching in the ditch around the edge of the butterfly using Aurifil 50wt #2600 Dove, then I quilted the background (solid  of the butterfly in the same color. For the printed section to the left of each butterfly I picked a thread color that blended. From the top, I used Aurifil 50wt #2588 Light Magenta, #3920 Golden Glow (variegated), and #2510 Light Lilac. This same thread was used for the binding on each. For the first time I bound by wrapping the backing fabric around to the front. Here's a close up of what that looked like from the front.

I look forward to using these in the kitchen. I like using mug rugs for people to be able to keep track of which glass it theirs.

Thanks for visiting! I hope you enjoy seeing my mug rugs. These little butterfly blocks go together really quickly. I used them long ago on a mini quilt. I love seeing the variety of ways people have used them.

Check out the projects from some other ambassadors this month:

Alison

Geraldine

Jennifer

Karen

Pamela

I've linked up to the Q4 FAL Finishes Linkup.

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Years ago I was inspired by another quilter who was making one block from the scraps of each finished quilt she made. I thought this was a wonderful idea and set out to make house blocks with my scraps.

I made two.

It became clear that I was finishing quilts too fast for this to be a feasible addition to my process. So I recently decided to finish the house block into a little mug rug.

These particular scraps go back to 2002 when I began quilting. Since the beginning I've been a multiple projects at once kind of quilter. The small lap quilt that these scraps came from was the second quilt that I pieced and the first one that I finished. The quilt was given to my late grandmother and years after she passed away it was given back to me. Here the two quilts are together.

Thank you for visiting!