Mug Rug with Free PDF Template by Jenna from Sew Happy Greek
A Mug {rug} of Scraps designed by Jennifer from Sew We Quilt
Modern Flag – Mug Rug Freebie Pattern designed by Jennifer Rodriguez from All Things Belle
Quilted Mug Rug with Napkin Pocket designed by Alicia Thommas from ScrapBusters
Mug Rug Simple Tutorial designed by TK Harrison from Quilt Therapy
I will continue to post fun items to make for the holidays on Fridays, leading up to December. I do not know about you but I have a LOT of folks who deserve gifts – teachers, friends, etc.
These flowers I made for my MIL last year are what we chose to make for the female teacher gifts this year. The tutorial for making them can be found at:
https://knittygrittythoughts.typepad.com/knitty_gritty_thoughts/2009/11/my-entry.html
We chose some fun Christmas fabric to use. We also have one Jewish teacher so we’ll make hers with blues and whites I already have at home. We also purchased small dowels and will wrap them with floral tape and add a couple of leaves to the stem. Finally, we will add a decorative bow to each flower.
Our son actually came up with an idea for the male teachers and that is mug rugs! He constantly amazes me with his memory as I made mug rugs earlier this year when my FM was wintering with us. It was a great suggestion and the girls agreed to it, as well.
I hope you enjoy this Friday Funday craft idea!
When my foster mother was wintering with us, she bought a new Brother sewing machine as well as the quilting presser foot. I gave her a couple of 12″ blocks to practice with and she did a great job of learning how to quilt with a domestic machine as opposed to a long-arm. As these two quilt squares you see below have been staring at me (probably mocking me), I have been trying to figure out what to do with them.
My foster mother just wanted me to bind them – but, that just didn’t ‘feel’ right to me. Finally, I figured out what I wanted to do with them! I cut them diagonally, corner-to-corner twice and will make four mug rugs out of each block!
Ah yes, my hat it has three corners, three corners has my hat!
Ooops, don’t know why that song keeps running through my mind when I set these triangles apart.
Once I have the binding on them, they will make a perfect mug rug gift set for anyone who likes using larger-than-a-coaster mug rug!
I think I had the most fun on this mug rug than I’ve had on any of the others we’ve put together this week! Most of that is because I just let myself GO quilt-wild! 🙂
This mug rug is foundation pieced as well as adding a little applique to the project. I started with a basic drawing on a 8″ x 10″ piece of muslin:
Next, I chose my fabrics for the design shown above:
OH, and let me just say – I am the laziest quilter you’ve ever met. I quilt for the love and passion I have for the art, not for competition, not for perfection, not for anyone but myself. Hence, when I started sewing the fabric to my foundation, I used the lines as a “soft guide” and not for an exact placement of my fabrics. The only piece of fabric that was cut and sewn to perfection was the circle – and for this, I used TWO (2) pieces of the yellow (square in the photo above) so the sun ray strips did not show through.
Then, just follow (or guesstimate) the pattern on your foundation fabric to sew the sun rays onto your foundation. If you need a tutorial on foundation piecing, feel free to visit this site for more information. Once the strips are all sewn onto your foundation, place the “sun” circles in place and blanket-stitch them into place. Then, make your quilt sandwich and quilt your sunny mug rug!
As you can see below, my version is not perfect – but, it’s ME, and to me, that’s what quilting is all about!
Since we’ve got a couple of mug rug tutorials under our belt, I have completed the one for today with a lot less photos.  In fact, the only photo I have for you is one of my completed mug rug!
Let’s start with the basics and get that out of way:
Here are two different heart shapes you can use as templates. Click on the image you would like to use and it will open in a new window – then, either save the image to your computer or print it out from the page:
3″ x 3″ heart
4″ x 4″ heart
And – ta-da! Here is the finished mug rug:
Tomorrow, we will complete our mug rugs with one that combines all of the techniques we’ve used this week!