The Joy of the Mug Rug

I have emoted on and on in previous posts about how much I love making/stitching/quilting little projects. To recap, my main reasons for this crazy love:

• You get to use up your scraps.
• You can try new techniques on something that doesn't take months and months.
• You can try new quilting patterns.
• They're fast!
• They're easy!
• They're adorable!
• And . . . they're frequently USEFUL!

Useful things are the best, particularly useful things that you can use on a day-to-day basis. 

Case in point: The Mug Rug.

Yeah, that's me. Looking totally crazy and geeked-out over my new mug rug...

I have to tell you, when I first heard about mug rugs, I was skeptical. Something about the name was too sweet for me, and I couldn't get my head wrapped about why you would want a place mat just for your mug. 

I get it now. I have fully and completely embraced the joy of, not only making, but also using a mug rug.

We swapped mug rugs at a meeting of the Cincinnati Modern Quilt Guild months and months ago, but I just came across the pictures and thought I'd share what I made and received. For the swap, we each paired up with a partner the month before the swap took place, and gave them our favorite mug for inspiration. I brought in one of my orange Fire King mugs—LOVE (you can see it on the far left below).

The mug rug that I received in the swap was made by my friend, Amy, and it has been on my bedside table for my evening cup of coffee ever since. 

I made this one—a mini Dresden plate appliquéd onto a polka dot background. I used a lot of topstitching around the plate center to add some stitching detail, and I pieced the binding from some of my scraps—it was completely unintentional, but the way the binding fell around the edge made it look striped which was cool.

 It's kind of hard to see in the photo, but I shadow-quilted around the plate, repeating the ripples all the way to the edges of the rug.

(Now I kind of want to go make another one...)

Happy Stitching!

Kelly