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!  

Li'l Punkin

A mini pumpkin mug rug for my mother

I made a cute little mug rug this week.  (No surprise here!)
My mother is here for a visit this week. I always like to show her what I have been working on, and explain who people are that I have been telling her about on the phone.  We were looking  at patterns made by Amanda,  of  The Patchsmith . (use link to go to her Craftsy site for her patterns! ) My mother  saw the mug rug pattern   with two little pumpkins on it  and loved it for the fall .   She asked me to make her a smaller size mug rug with just one pumpkin on it.

Original Mug Rug by Amanda,  The Patchsmith

I had a lot of fall fabrics in my stash and pulled them out to figure out the ones I wanted to use for Mom.  I decided to use the left (bigger ) pumpkin, and add a row of 1 1/2 inch squares (before sewing), to the right of the pumpkin.

 I guess I got distracted a bit LOT,  and I  actually thought I was finished at this stage, after finishing the binding.

My pumpkin before quilting and embroidery

I soon  realized that it needed some embellishment to turn it into a cute li'l old punkin!
After  machine quilting the grooves in the pumpkin body and some vines off of the stem , and hand stitching  some veins onto the leaf, it was done.

Quilted and stitched small mug rug

Small mug rug

Mom's mug rug is ready to go home with her!  She is happy and ready to enjoy Halloween and Thanksgiving with her daily mug of tea!

Before I close, I wanted to shout out to one of my special  blog readers... my Uncle Monty!  He builds beautiful model railroad towns, creating his own landscapes and scenery! And now,  he is one of my enablers!

Susie and Uncle Monty     love you xo

I'm off to my sewing room!

Halloween Mug Rugs

Halloween Mug Rugs

I decided to make some Halloween themed mug rugs this week.  
I think that I have an bad case of "Mug Rug Fever" ...
Some mild symptoms first appeared  after I made my   Scottie Dog Mug Rug . I got  cranky mildly irritated when I didn't have time to immediately make a second one upon completion.  
Then,  my fever started climbing higher and higher as I read the recent posts  from Amanda,  The Patchsmith.

Spoiler alert:    Skip over  this next  area in red  if you don't want to know what Amanda's latest mug rug pattern is before you see her blog post! (or  if your immune system can't handle being exposed to the Mug Rug Bug  right now!)
*********************************************************************************************************                                  It is so darn cute and irresistible... 
                                                Elephants!!  
She has this new pattern and lots of other cute patterns available on Craftsy.              And, you won't want to  miss seeing  her blog post on Thursday, Oct. 4, as she will have an original design featured that day in  the Glorious Autumn Block Party by Quilting Gallery.com.   You will be seeing more of her patterns on Susie's Sunroom in the future.   She is so darling and talented, and makes me laugh. ;)

Spoiler End ****************************************************************************

Whiskers is pointing to her favorite one.... but she prefers bigger rugs to lay on!

 OK,  you can read now.  
I made myself finish the piles of clothes that needed to be ironed.  Then I treated myself to  some fun- by making  some mug rugs out of Halloween colors.  (Does anyone else make herself do the "chores" first ,  and then reward herself  with "sewing time" ?!)  (uh-oh...)

Here are my two new mug rugs:

Ghost  and Candy Corn Mug Rugs

 The ghost was fun to make, because I used scraps . I decided to make it scrappy for the background and the back side.

I sewed 1 1/2 inch strips together.  Then I cut the rectangle out  on on angle.

The Back:  even patchier and scrappier,  by sewing pieces together to form a larger rectangle.  

 I applied the ghost-shaped applique to the front, using Heat-n-Bond lite, iron-on adhesive.Then I  used embroidery thread to create  his eyes and mouth. (by hand).  Machine quilting was next-

I made "ripples" around the shape of the ghost, to machine quilt it

I blanket stitched the applique shape, using my Viking Topaz.  I love this stitch!

Now for the binding:   I have started  using this great machine binding method for small projects, like mug rugs , wall hangings and pot holders.  My clever sister, Amy, of Amy Made That! has put  her method together into  a free pdf file download (free pdf.)   (Treat yourself and go look at her blog!  I just love her style and fabric choices.)

Reality... I did not photoshop-out my imperfect binding.  It is  a little  wavy in  areas...  (And my photos seem to magnify the waves.) ....and a bit wonky at both of the right- hand corners.  But I can live with the way it looks .  Neat and clean. And it doesn't take much time to execute this method  on the sewing machine.  
Reality... Amy makes them near perfection! [ I have a lot of catchin' up to do to get even close to her level!!]

My Wonky Ghost Mug Rug

This is my Candy Corn Mug Rug:

 

Candy Corn mug rug  

 I just pieced some fabric leftovers for the back.

Back side.   No problems with this binding. I did this one BEFORE the Ghost... go figure!

Well, time to stop sewing and go shopping for some fall-flavored coffee! So I can use my rugs.
Let me know if any of you are running a Mug Rug Fever!    It is contagious!  :) sorry  not really

I'm off to my sewing room!