Mug Rug Tutorial

Do you have a pile of scraps and/or strips of fabric that you wonder what you could make with?

Do you just have a little time for a quick project?   How about a Mug Rug??  Yeah !!

I love grey and yellow combinations!  I know these colors have been quite the rage lately. 

I've been itching to make something with my small pile of yellows and grays.

I began by just cutting strips of fabric ~ I varied the width of my strips anywhere between 1.5" - 1.75"

Strip lovelies!!   Looks so pretty!

I then sewed a few strips together ~ don't put too much thought into this ~ just sew :)

After sewing a few strips ~ approximately 14 - 18 strips (depending on how wide your strips are)

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Cut the uneven edges off

After ironing the seams open 

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Take the quilted piece and place your ruler on a 45 degree angle  ~ and then cut away

(I know this is a scary part) 

 Place your ruler along the first cut edge , matching up edges

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Hold the ruler firmly in place so you don't slip with the rotary cutter ~ 

Make sure it's lined up nicely ~   cut away at 4" 

This is what you should have after cutting both sides 

Position your ruler at it's perpendicular grid ~ slice away your 4" squares

Repeat the above steps until you have four pieces of 4" squares 

Decide on the placement of your four squares ~  here is a couple of ideas 

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The placement that I decided on for my mug rug is shown below

 Being careful ~  pick up your pieces ~ making sure that when you sew them

 together that you are sewing them together as you would like them to appear in your mug rug

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Sew the top 2 together 

and then sew the bottom 2 together ...

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Try to place your top piece and bottom piece so that the center part of the mug rug matches up nicely

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Sew your top piece to your bottom piece

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Somehow I got my placement mixed up ~ but nevertheless I love how they are placed!

This is how my mug rug looked after I pieced the 4 blocks together

Cut a 10" square piece of the fabric that you would like to use for your backing 

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I decided on the gray and white houndstooth

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Cut a 10" square piece of batting

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Now we are going to make a quilt sandwich (not edible)

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Lay your batting piece onto the wrong side of the backing

then lay your quilted piece (right side up)  on top of the batting

making sure that it's centered nicely

Now you are ready to machine quilt  :) 

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Starting at the center of the top piece, begin machine quilting going around in circles

using your sewing foot as a guide  ~ matching up the edge of the foot to the 

previous sewn line in the circle 

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Continue sewing in circles until you have quilted your entire top piece

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I realized that I didn't start enough into the center of the top piece 

So upon completion of my quilted circles ~ I went back to the center and quilted accordingly.

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Can you see the circles??   Cool!

This is the back of my mug rug  ~  I don't know if you can see the quilted spiraled circles

For the binding ~  Cut a 2" strip of fabric which is about 1 yard long

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I used a Bias Tape Maker to make my bias tape 

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However, if you don't have a bias tape maker...No problem !   

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You can just press the entire strip length wise in half 

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Open up the seam  

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fold in the edge to match up with the center seam and then press  -  you should now have a long 36" piece that measures approximately 1/2 inch wide

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I totally forgot to take a picture on how I attach the bias to this mug rug ...sorry

However, you can find a lot of information online in regards to attaching a bias to a quilted piece

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Lastly, I topstitched the attached bias all the way around the mug rug

 The backing of my mug rug..

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That's it!  ~  I hope this inspires you to make a mug rug for yourself  ~ These make great gifts!

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Here's my Mug Rug!  I am off to enjoy my cup of coffee 

with coconut macaroons from Trader Joe's! 

  YUM!!