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.

Into the Woods

I can't believe that I'm on the Moda Bake Shop today! One of the driving influences that convinced me I could quilt was reading their tutorials. This quilt was originally intended to be part of the Christmas in July series, but due to some internet gremlins eating e-mails it became one of the Quilts with Stories. I've always thought of this as a winter quilt rather than Christmas, so I'm rather pleased with the changed theme. For directions on how to make this quilt top please hop over to the bakeshop. (If you're here from Moda's website WELCOME!!!)

One of my favorite drinks is hot cocoa with marshmallows. When I saw this fabric I was bouncing for joy the rest of the day. There are a lot of aspects of this quilt that fight to be my favorite part, but the steaming mugs of hot cocoa and marshmallows covering the back of this quilt just might win that fight. I had about 6" left from each of my jellyroll strips, plus the strips that used my tree fabrics. I cut my backing fabric the length of my top (plus a little extra to allow for quilting) and then cut the remaining section in half lengthwise to keep my cocoa cups all facing upright. 

This picture shows you a close up of the cocoa mugs and my label. I had a left over block from the front that I cut on point to 6.5." I then used one of the jellyroll strip of my tree fabric to sash the block and hand appliqued onto the quilt. This block works perfectly for a quilt label.

I know that traditionally quilters choose small prints for the binding. This collection has several small prints that would work nicely, but I love how a large busy print looks as a binding. Rather than finding one color that works with everything in the quilt, I find a print with most of the colors of the quilt in it. Because the binding shows such a small section of the print it gets broken up and provides a really fun, unexpected twist.