A Fun Project

House and Home M. R.

Well,  since I have made  a million quite a few of them now, I  think you picked up on  my short-hand for "Mug Rug" !

I realized that yesterday was October 1st already, and the Handcrafted Holiday Sew & Stitch  Sew Along and contest, at Sew Much 2 Luv , was officially beginning. Yay!

Amanda ( of The Patchsmith) first noticed this  Sew Along, and  asked my sister Amy ( of   AmyMadeThat! blog) and myself if we wanted to participate with her in this group. I jumped in. Anything that these two ladies do is awesome and FUN! ( I go along for the ride and learn so much!! )

I love the simplicity of this sew along....   sew or cross stitch or crochet a gift a week.  Put your picture in the Flickr group, and you get a chance to win a prize!  You can use the button to the right of this blog, to go to Sew Much 2 Luv for more details.   YOU can join in anytime, too! 

The first thing  to do was to pick out a project.  I was looking at my Flickr page, and saw that clever  pattern-maker Amanda (The Patchsmith)  had posted another new pattern!   And, to my delight, it was another cute mug rug!  By now,  I was sweating, feeling my heart beat faster, and  well in the throes of a mug rug fever attack  !

I downloaded that pattern  before you could say, "Bob's Your Uncle!" (See the end of this post for more about my Uncle Bob.) ( Ahhh...instant gratification. )   Luckily, I  had a good selection of fabrics in my stash - Little Yellow Bicycle for Blend Fabrics , called Vintage Summer.  It has cherrys, greens, reds, dark pinks...that gave a feel of " cottage " to the pattern.

I used Press-N-Seal as  a template for the hand embroidery. You just sew on top of it.

You can see the Press-N-Seal better in this picture

 I  saw several tutorials online that mentioned using Glad Press-N-Seal as a template for hand embroidery.  I used a fine tip marker, and traced the pattern for the heart-shaped smoke, that comes out  of the little porch chimney.  And then I traced the word "home" .   The PNS wrap stays in place to sew.  I had to be careful  while tearing the Press-N-Seal off, though.  I saw that someone suggested using tweezers, and this was the perfect tool to help get the last little pieces of plastic out from under my stitches!

  

My House and Home mug rug

Embroidery  close up

The little cottage is fun to applique.  I added a little ric rac fence like Amanda's.

Now, I can add my picture of this fun little mug rug  to the Flickr page of the sew along, and see if I get lucky next week when they pick the first winners!

If you chose to join along,  tell me and I will post your project picture on my blog as well!

Incidentally, I really do say the  phrase ,  "Before you can say , "Bob's  your uncle! "     Today I used  it so I can segue  into  a hello to  another special uncle of mine . Uncle Bob.     Uncle Bob is a  talented musician ( he sings and plays trumpet ),  and  band and choral director.  He  is always supportive  and encouraging of our embroidery and sewing projects.

Hi Uncle  Bob!   love you  xo

It's raining and cold out today.  I am grabbing my Creme Brulee flavored coffee.   Yum.

I'm off to my sewing room!