Prairie Stars Mug Rug

Don't you just hate it when you think you have a deadline and it turns out the deadline is really two days earlier? It seems to happen a lot around the holidays. At the beginning of the crafting season you start out with a plan and a schedule then you find out that the party where your gift will be opened is going to be earlier than the 25th. I thought I had until Monday to get these mug rugs finished. Last night I was checking facebook and one of my friends shared that I had a pattern published on moda. Boy was I shocked. Okay, so I knew that my Prairie Stars Table Runner was going to be published this month, but I thought my deadline was Monday. Sorry if you came here yesterday looking for this tutorial.

On the brighter side Moda's new Candy mini-charms make the perfect last minute Christmas gifts when those deadlines come zooming up. Wouldn't these mug rugs be a great gift with a nice variety of warm drink mixes? To make one mug rug you'll need (9) 2.5" squares. I chose to make mine with solids and used two black squares, three yellows, two dark blue, one white, and one light blue.

Set aside your center square (in my case the light blue one) and draw a diagonal line through the center of your light blocks. Match your dark and light blocks (2 yellow with 2 black, 1 blue with 1 white, and 1 blue with 1 yellow.) Sew a quarter inch seam on each side of your line and cut on your line. Press.

You will have four HST units for your corners (In this case yellow and black HSTs.) Cut your center squares (those blue ones) in half diagonally. Match one blue/white unit with a blue/yellow unit with blues opposite each other and sew. Press all of your blocks.

Your pieces should look something like this right now. Trim all of your squares to 1.5" square and sew together. This block finishes at 3" which is great if you're making a miniature quilt, but a little small for a coffee mug so I added some sashing.

 For sashing cut (2) 3.5"x1.5" strips and (2)1.5"x5" strips. Sew short pieces on opposite sides of block and then attach long pieces to remaining edges and trim block to 4.5". I did simple in the ditch quilting around the edge of each square to help the rug lay flat and used some left over binding from my table runner.  I definitely need a little more practice doing bindings on things this small. Since this is such a quick project though I can easily make up some more of these to practice on.