After I'd finished my thread catcher yesterday, I decided to plan out a pieced mugrug. I haven't done any patchwork for well over a year, so thought that this would be a great place to start again, something that I could finish quickly in an hour or so. I wanted it to be about the same size as the one I made with the swirly fabric (approx 10" x 8"). I knew I wanted to use 2 fabrics in particular that I had fat quarters of. They are the same design, and are from the Surfin' Monkeys for Benartex range. The red was difficult to photograph, I think that this was take #9 ~ the colours kept coming up pink on my camera.
A light bulb went on ~ I had a great idea!!!
I grabbed a sheet of paper, and complete with pen and my quilting ruler, I drew a quick grid that was 10x8 .... with me so far??
I love making designs with squares, so I sat and coloured in the squares where I was planning on using the blue fabric and left the squares white where I was to use the red, the intention was that the bit on the right would surround my mug whilst the squares on the left would hold my little treats ... still with me??
I cut up my beautiful fabric into squares and start chain stitching them all together. As I was getting towards the end, I couldn't understand why it was so big. This thing was HUGE compared to my last one. I just couldn't understand why. I sat and pondered for a few minutes before it finally struck me. Although I'd made my grid 10x8, I'd actually cut 2 1/2 inch squares to make 2 inch finished .... no wonder it was double both the length and width.
As I (mentally) slapped my forehead I decided that rather than reverse stitching all of it, I would just remove parts of it and make two for the price of one! I also had a few squares left over from the strips I cut and added these in, so now I have 3 for the price of one...wooohooo. I had to leave them in strips to go and do the school run, so my first job was to press and then sew them together this morning.
Here they are sandwiched with the wadding. I decided to stitch baste them as I don't like using sprays indoors. As they were only small, I basted diagonally across each one of them both ways.
I had problems with the quilting, and to be honest, felt like throwing my machine out of the window at one point. If you look at the back of these you will see exactly what I mean ... but I'm far too ashamed to photograph that part! I haven't had much experience with free motion quilting. My one and only completed bargello lap quilt got straight lines quilted across it! I did do a couple of days with a wonderful English free motion quilting expert a couple of years ago. But since then, I've got a new machine and haven't done any since. So I guess again, a lot has been forgotten. I free motioned the first 2 and then decided to straight stitch on the larger one. Forgot to use a walking foot (oops), but as it was small, it didn't really move. I think it's becoming obvious now why since getting my machine 18 months ago, it's only really been used for embroidery. I think my 2 king sized quilt tops that I have will either have straight lines or be hand quilted!
I messed up with the binding, as I mentioned in previous posts, it's been quite some time since I did any quilting. I had got it into my head that I needed to strip cut 2 1/2 inches for binding! Now I know the experienced quilters are thinking 'What the heck!!!' ... well I guess I'll just have to check next time I forget LOL. I cut them down to 1 1/2 inches which are obviously the perfect size for these. I have machined onto the front, but have left the back to hand stitch in front of the TV later. I did quickly pin the back to take the photographs, so please ignore the fact that they're not in any way even.
update : since posting, I've realised where I went wrong with the binding. I DID use 2 1/2 inch widths on the items I've made previously BUT I only used a single binding on this rather than a double that I've previously used ... hence the size difference ... glad I figured that one out! LOL
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