Mug Rug Swap (2018)

I've mentioned the quilting group on Ravelry that I'm a part of, Quilters Knitting. This summer they organized a mug rug swap and I jumped on board. Sign ups were closed June 15 and the mug rug had to be delivered by August 15. (In their hands, not in the mail.) One person organized it so that we were all given a person to send to and someone else would send to us.

The last week of July, I received this beauty:

Isn't it so wonderful?! Here is the back, nicely "signed":

And here are some detail shots of the quilting.

She said she is new to free motion quilting and pieces like this are great to practice on.

She did a great job.

Meanwhile, I had already been working on my mug rug. I had bought a pack of english paper piecing papers on sale when the local quilt shop closed earlier this year. I knew I'd do something with them!

June 9: The papers were small diamonds for making a star pattern. I pulled out some fabrics, covered some papers, and started playing with a design.

Soon I had the design laid out,

except I needed to make special pieces to make a straight edge. I simply took the three pieces needed to fill the space (bottom of picture below) and taped them together to make one piece (upper piece in picture below).

Then I could cover that one piece with fabric and save myself a bit of sewing. There was no need to make all those pieces separate.

By the end of the day, I had pieced together the centre star with the background pieces.

Isn't it so cute!?

June 10: All the pieces are sewn together and it is time to take out the papers:

Even though the diamonds were very small, I still punched a hole in the middle to make it easier to pull them out. After loosening the glue holding the fabric to the paper, I insert the seam ripper under that paper through the hole and pop the paper out. This is not only easier but saves a bit of wear and tear on the edges of the fabric.

Once all the papers are out, the pieces looks a little ragged,

but nothing that a session with an iron won't fix.

Look at all those furled intersections! I love it. This happens automatically, as long as you wrap your fabric around all the papers in the same direction.

This was a nice trial to see if ironing the fabric before washing out the glue would harm the iron or cause any other problems. It all worked fine and now I know I can do this on my Lucy Boston blocks if needed.

I did, however, go ahead and soak the piece to get out the glue before proceeding. After drying and ironing, everything looked neat and trim:

Next stage is to layer it with batting and a backing.

June 11: The quilting is done. I hand quilted it, outlining the individual pieces in thread that matched the colour of the front.

I had enough of one of the blues to use for the binding. It was a small piece, however, so I had to use a few short cuts of fabric.

The first time I tried to sew it on, I got a seam of the binding in the corner three times. So I took off the binding and started in a different place so the seams would land in the middle of a side instead.

Here is the backing that I chose to go with the binding:

It was a beautiful piece of orange and blue batik. I only had a small piece, but it was enough for this.

Here you can see some of the design made on the back by the different colour threads:

And here is the finished piece.

A mug rug in three days. I was done in plenty of time for the deadline, but then I decided to enter it in the county fair. So my poor recipient was forced to wait. On the good side, it did get a blue ribbon! :)

I mailed it yesterday and my recipient should have it by Thursday (August 9 - so plenty of time before the deadline!) I really loved making this piece and the final result, so I hope she likes it. I know she really likes stars in quilts, so I think I'm safe.

Summer Swap Report

I just realized I didn't post about the Red Purl swap. I was too busy going to the airport over the weekend. (Lots of progress on my secret project...I made this coming Friday's deadline already!)

Once again we had a great group of people at the shop. Quite a crowd...let's say about 16, 17. I was not organizing the swapping this time so I could just sit back and relax!

The package that got every one's attention right away had "boob" balloons on it. You don't need two guesses to get what was inside! The funniest part was that it went to one of the least likely to model them...even over top of a shirt. We all had a good hoot about it anyway.

One of the swappers was giving away the second thing she had ever made! That's a very brave and generous thing to do! It was a lovely linen face cloth with various appropriate accompanying gifts.

And what did I make? Well, I took some recycled cotton from a sweater and made a cuff:

 with some silver buttons.

Here it is stretched out.

Here it is folded up.

And what did I get? I got a lovely cotton bag/sachet with sandlewood soap:

I love the colours and texture of the bag!

Amy has a whole basket of felted balls she couldn't stop making:

Her gift was three of these and a book on juggling! (The book was bound with two wooden needles. It was too clever.)

It was a great night...thanks for all the laughs, ladies!!

Project Stats
Started: 03 Jul '11
Finished: 04 Jul '11
Pattern: Pretty Twisted by Cat Wong (free)
Materials: 15 grams of mercerized cotton from a 2nd hand sweater


Oh, I almost forgot to point out this is my blue project for Project Spectrum this month...way to sneak one in there, eh?

Summer Swap

If you work a little fast, or make something small, there's still time to put something together for this week's swap at Red Purl.

This month's knit night is on Friday the 8th. Amy has invited people to bring a small project (one skein or less)  made out of summer yarns (cotton, linen, hemp, bamboo, silk). Several themes were bantied about, but none of them won an overall majority. Amy eventually left it at "Anything goes from pasties to broaches to market bags to whatever."

When it was looking like "naughty knitting" might be the theme, I started planning a pair of stars and stripes pasties. I abandoned the idea when it was no longer the major theme. (Plus how would I get a modeled picture of the finished objects!?!)

Bonus "blue" shot.
I think that's my mom and Isaac up there.

I'm not going to reveal what I will be bringing, but I can say that it is blue and therefore gets counted as a project for Project Spectrum this month!

Feel free to show up at Red Purl this Friday night if you'd like to join in. (I'm sure you feel safer coming now that you know you won't be getting pasties from me...)

First Swap

I can finally share with you a project I did back in April.

On March 31st, I signed up for a "mug rug" swap in the quilters group on Ravelry. (What's a mug rug? It's a little placemat-like object to be used as a combination coaster and plate for a drink and snack.)

This was my first ever swap! I was excited. I thought the project was just the right size and commitment for me (small) and was also a good object to receive--no worries if it doesn't match or you're really not that crazy about it. (You may call me a cynic or a pessimist but I do worry about these types of things.)

Actually a bigger problem is that I don't drink or snack much while crafting, but I wasn't going to let that stop me from participating.

Anyway, when I saw the idea being floated, I jumped on the band wagon, and it's a good thing because it filled up fast! (Fast enough they had a 2nd and 3rd chance swap going in short order.)

The rules: make a quilted mug rug and send it soon enough to be received by June 1st.
The organizer matched people up, and for the most part you didn't receive from the same person you sent to. And, of course, it was a secret so it was all hush hush until the package arrived!

There was a thread for progress reports so people could share how they were doing and one person was done on April 5, only days after the signups closed! Most people posted pictures of the mug rugs that they received and it really was a marvel at the variety. So many lovely ideas!

and so many more...  There were 30 people in the swap, I think.

I finished my mug rug about the middle of April and finally got it mailed the day after Easter. I made a free form rose, of sorts, with a side panel in the "focus fabric."

and quilted it in parallel lines that followed the shape of the side panel.

The back was made of strips of the fabrics from the front and I signed it in marker:

I even had the perfect mug to model it with:

I was excited to finally send it off...but then it wasn't acknowledged in the thread for about a month. That took some of the shine off, unfortunately. On the up side, the recipient seemed to really like it and that is the main thing.

I patiently waited for my own mug rug and heard on the day of the deadline that it would be late. I waited patiently some more and yesterday received my mug rug: (It actually had been so long that when the package came, I assumed it was something my husband ordered and gave it to him. He was surprised to open "his" package and see a mini-quilt!)

You can see it's in the very colours that I did mine in!! (And she didn't see mine because the recipient didn't post pictures.) Perhaps she was spying on my projects and saw that I liked red. Or maybe she just got lucky. Or maybe we're both riding the same trend right now. In any case, I really like the bold colours and sharp contrasts.

She also sent along a nice selection of teas (I did specify that I drank tea over coffee).

She also chose to piece her back. I really like that trend.

Although I'd have to admit that I will only cautiously commit to another swap, this was fun. I enjoyed making my mug rug, and I very much appreciate the mug rug I got!