Friday, December 23, 2011

Mug Rug Details

Mug Rug*
For Gift Exchange at December Sacramento Modern Quilt Guild Meeting
Original design
Approx. 8" x 10"
Partly from stash
Completed 12/16/2011
*Small placemat to hold coffee mug and little plate for a pastry/donut/muffin

Top left - Coffee cups and mugs, which could contain coffee, tea or hot chocolate
Top right - red from stash seemed to go with the red in the theme fabric
Bottom - batik-looking fabric from stash, which would hide any stains from spills

Creating an "escape hatch" with the backing fabric, leaving an unsewn space in the center for turning the quilt later. It is a technique I learned in a Quilting Arts free e-book: "How to Bind a Quilt: 12 NEW Quilt Binding and Finishing Methods for Your Art Quilts". I've used this method several times, and I go into some written detail here.

As seen from the right side

Strip made by pressing toward the back on both long edges, overlapping a bit. Leaves the edges finished.

Placed the strip on the theme fabric off-center for style

Top-stitched along the long edges of the strip
Trimmed the strip even with the theme fabric

Scotch-taped the escape hatch closed on the right side.
Quilt sandwich: batting on bottom, theme fabric right side up, backing right side down.

Sewed all around the perimeter of the backing (1/4" seam allowance)

Quilt sandwich trimmed, corners notched out for turning

Reached through escape hatch, breaking through the tape, turned the quilt right side out. Used a chopstick to push out the corners.

Back of the mug rug
Quilting
Used the left leg of the walking foot as a spacer to make (relatively) parallel quilting lines.
Stopped just short of each edge of the mug rug to avoid unquilted spaces that were smaller than the width between lines...something I picked up from Cotton Theory Quilting techniques.

Here's the finished mug rug

Here is the back

The mug rug was supposed to be about the size of a sheet of printer paper. Here it is on a sheet. Pretty close!
Guild member Pam ended up with the mug rug. I hope she enjoys using it as much as I enjoyed making it.

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