Mug Rug Madness

I've been busy this week. The house is filthy, and there was one emergency take-out dinner. Toddlers were left to play alone as long as there was not crying or bashing. Now it's done, and I am glad, but it was great while it lasted.

About ten days ago I tried again to work on a disappearing hourglass quilt I cut for in November. It is just not coming together the way I want, and I'd collected a few piles of cut-up test blocks as a result. To break the logjam I thought I'd throw them together into something. The test blocks are made from plain fabric scraps, and since I've discovered needle turn appliqué it seemed a logical embellishment. And then what?

Mug rug.

Other than the insane fiddliness of binding something that small, mug rugs turned out to be quilty ADD awesomeness. Would these colours go together? Cut 'em up and find out! Haven't made flying geese in a while and can't remember the measurement ratios? Cut four sets, ruin two, still have something useable for the effort. Frustrated that FMQ isn't flowing on the new machine? A 10" square is a good size to practice on. Who knew what fun things were lurking in the depths of my (now tilled-ever) scrap bins?! Who knew that 10 mug rugs in 10 days would not make any noticeable dent on said bins?

Skill building, colour play, and a stack of gifts for the kindergarten teachers before my eldest moves on to big-kid school in September = win-win-win, I'd say.

Except the housekeeping. That definitely got lost in this frenzy.

 

All but 1 of the big ones

the one that started it all. Minimally quilted, all with the walking foot. Lord love that Pfaff dual feed!

I knew those dead jeans weren't garbage! And hey, I made machined binding work! That's a rare choice for me, but under the circumstances (denim, time crunch) it seemed right. I thought that looked like pencils, but my family disagrees. Can I get a high five for the tiniest mitres of all time?

lovely linens. the tiny pinwheels are VERY tiny (3cm on the diagonal)

Got the tension settings for buttonholing/raw-edge appliqué figured out

this one got big. I'll put up a tutorial on 4HST hearts soon. Middle pinwheel accidentally became a butterfly, so I quilted in antennae. "Danke" is quilted into the top placeholder

my favourite. Needle-turn (still not good with inside corners) on linen

 

QAYG log cabin in shot cottons and linen. Proved to myself that I don't like log cabins. "Danke" is quilted into the centre square.

coasters for the student teachers. Having trouble with colour balance in night photos - the biding is a berry red with some magenta tones, not crimson

binding coasters is a PITA. Machining it down on the back took all the pins in my pincushion. Next time, I'll use this tutorial

Here's my husband's favourite from the bunch. Interesting that it was not claimed in the first round by the teachers. It was inspired by the poem "The Darkling Thrush", which I read in grade 12 and suddenly popped into my head in response to the weather lately. How'd I do with the windy quilting?

three greys and a red

singing strawberries :)

the teeniness of the pebbling "snow" was a rookie mistake

this has the same high-loft batting as the first mat shown, but with all that quilting it feels like felt

this is that strawberry deep pink binding again, but in every photo it shows up red

Anybody have comments on how durable needle-turn appliqué is? What are the "rules" about quilting it? It seems a shame to quilt it down, but I'd hate for it to rip off.