Mug Rugs for Colleagues

Recently, I officially joined a new team in my company. I'd been seconded to work with the Training & Development department while my own area of the business was undergoing a redesign of our processes, and needed a trainer to train staff on the changes. When an opportunity arose for me to make my assignment permanent, I went for it and got the job!

To celebrate, and to thank my coworkers for being so welcoming and wonderful, I made them each a mug rug customized to their interests (e.g. Vancouver Whitecaps FC soccer, sailing), personalities (e.g. classic, sunshiney), tastes (e.g. purple, bling) or a particular fact about them (e.g. recent transplant to Canada from UK, meaning of their name). Here is a collage of the 10 (yes, 10) mugrugs I made.

They were *very* well received, I'm happy and proud to say. 

There are individual photos of each mug rug in my Flickr photostream. They're all my own design, and I sourced the foundation paper piecing patterns for the Maple Leaf here, the Union Jack here, and the sailboat here (I adjusted one sail slightly so they weren't the same size).

Friday Felicities

Happy Friday! It's been quiet here this week - the long weekend threw me off the routine and my sewing suffered a bit. But I managed to pump out a cute little mug rug:

I was heavily influenced/inspired by Krista's gorgeous improv flowers (I'm still sad that I was out of town when she did a workshop on this technique for the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild!). I tried a few new FMQ designs with Aurifil 50 weight in a red/orange/yellow variegated colourway (#4657) in the petals, and stippled in the green background. Scrappy binding and it's all set to go.

My felicity is hearing G say at dinner last night, "OK, Three Good Things: Daddy, you go first." Three Good Things is my family's version of Friday Felicities. I instated it when talk of school seemed to be exclusively a litany of negatives from little G. It's true that she was struggling to find her place in the social hierarchy of the Kindergarten girls -- there are only three of them and the other two know each other from being in the morning preschool class together so G was odd-kid out.

I didn't ignore her anxieties about her classmates, but I really, REALLY wanted her to get in the habit of focusing on what went well each day so every night at dinner, we each take turns telling our "Three Good Things." I was so thrilled when she initiated it for a change, and I was delighted to hear her first Good Thing was that "school was great!"

Gratuitous Mama and G photo. 
Note: if I thought for one second that I could get away with leggings like hers, I'd be all over them.

Happy Weekend, all!

T is for Thank You

I was the recipient of an Act of Thoughtfulness this week from a coworker. She knows I quilt, and that my style is "mod" as she put it. When she was at an estate sale recently, she saw some fabrics that she thought I would love, and bought them to give to me!

Aren't they great? The frog print (from Blank Quilting) is a half-metre cut, and the others (Marcus Brothers textiles) are FQs.

So as a thank you, I whipped up this little (~8" square) mug rug for her desk at work. Her first initial is a T, and she is a fan of purple and grey. She loved it, I'm happy to say.

Very simple stipple quilting in a gorgeous variegated purple thread (Aurifil 3840 in 50 wt):

I'm in the home stretch with this round of training at work. So far the sessions have gone extremely well. I've received some terrific feedback and I've been having a blast. Only two full-day sessions and one half-day session to go, then I'm off work for a week. I can finally get to responding to the lovely comments you've been leaving me these last few post!! Can't wait!

WIP Wednesday

I'm trying to think back on what I did last week, and wondering why I only have one mug rug to show for my time. Pah.

Well here is that mug rug, anyway. It's for my lovely friend Emily who recently started a new job (after a fairly long search and I'm so happy for her). She asked me to make her one, and told me what kind of fabric and colours she likes and I went from there.

Back:


I had a dilemma with the colour of thread to use for the quilting and I am SO HAPPY that I chose some yellow 30 wt rayon thread I won in some doorprize draw many moons ago. It mimics the gold accents in the fabric absolutely perfectly if I do say so. And if I had a better camera with an actual macro setting, you would be better able to see that I quilted (what I hope looks like) bamboo shoots and leaves in the plain area. I'm super pleased with it, and I hope Emily is too.

And that's it!

Oh wait, I made the nametag, too. Whew - TWO things! I feel soooo much better now (sarcasm).

Not much of a WiP report from me, but there are lots over at Lee's!

One More Christmas Gift

This is a mug rug for my awesome boss, who makes my work life the best it can possibly be considering it's...you know....work. And I'm not just saying that because she reads this blog!

That's some Philip Jacobs fabric in the centre there - love those blowsy flowers! The back is a bit of that purple fabric with a strip of the batik in the centre.

And with that, ladies and germs, it appears my 2010 projects have come to a close. My Dad arrives on Saturday for a week's visit, and Santa's wrapping workshop has to kick into gear.

I hope to do a 2010 wrap-up post to summarize my first year (!!!) of blogging - my projects, other experiences etc. so stay tuned.

WIP Wednesday

Looking for the giveaway? Click HERE!

I was a busy little bunny this past week. Being home sick from work helped a bit, but honestly I was feeling too lousy to do all that much. And my little girl had her 3rd birthday over the weekend, which meant party preps. I think she seems pretty pleased, though, don't you?

Enjoying her balloon bouquet while wearing her "3" shirt and Mama's necklace

Anyhoo, I had two WIP goals for this past week:
1. Complete Teacher cup cuffs. Done!


2. Complete Teacher Mug Rugs. Done and done!

Bonus stuff done:
1. Binding sewn on the tree skirt.

WIP Wednesday is a weekly linkup - go check it out!

Fabric Tuesday

Looking for the giveaway? Click HERE!

And now we return to our regularly-scheduled posting....Fabric Tuesday!

Well, I finally stitched down the last of the binding on Miss Chris's mug rug. I'm very happy with how it turned out. The fabric and style is very much "her" and I really hope she likes it. The black outline just inside the binding is actually a flange, and I created a tutorial (with what are quite possibly the world's worst photos) for it if you're interested.

I also finished up a few other projects this week:

A mugrug for Sew Mama Sew giveaway day

Cup Cuffs

The Tree Skirt is thiiiiiiis close to being finished. I just need to attach the binding to the back and make the ties.

Tutorial: Adding a Flange to Your Quilt

When I posted photos of my Holiday Mug Rug, I had a few people ask about the flange (that little bit of red just inside the binding) and how I'd done it.

It's super easy and I'm happy to tell you how I did mine.

1. Trim your quilt.

2. Cut a strip of flange fabric 3/4" wide. I prefer to cut the strip parallel to the selvage because the fabric doesn't stretch or distort as much. You can measure the height and width, or just eyeball it like I did and cut a piece for each of side of the quilt's 4 sides. Err on the side of caution and cut them longer than you need. Ask me how I know *that* bit of advice.





Press the flange pieces in half. Try not to distort them too much. If they curve a bit, just move them back into shape when they're still warm from the iron.

3. Take a pressed flange piece, and line it up, raw edges together, with the edge of your quilt. Make sure it covers the length of the side you're attaching it to, extending a bit past each end. Stitch it on with a 1/8" seam allowance, which means the seam will be hidden when you attach the binding with the usual 1/4" seam allowance. Try to keep the flange lined up as exactly as possible, and keep your seam allowance even. Every little blip really shows up because you're dealing with small bits of fabric.




4. Go ahead and attach all 4 flanges, and it's okay if they overlap at the ends. Then trim the ends flush with each side.


5. Attach your binding as usual and enjoy your neat little piping/flange effect!

Scrappy Mug Rug Complete!

Ta Daaaaaaa! To say that I am pleased with how this turned out would be like saying "Vancouver gets a wee bit of rain in the Fall." In other words, I'm really proud of this mug rug.

Once I'd assembled the top, I fretted about how to quilt the geese, and asked for advice. A Flickr comment twigged with me, and I got the idea to connect the points at the base of each goose/triangle, which was brill.i.ant if I do say so myself. Now the circle of geese looks like the wreath I had intended it to! Yay!

After quilting it, I moved on to fretting about the binding. I knew I wanted to use the red and white snowflake fabric (Michael Miller, maybe? I can't remember as usual) for the back. But I had initially thought of doing a red binding, which would have made the back really blah. A white binding would contrast nicely with the back fabric, but would make the front kind of unbalanced with the green frame around the needlework but the wreath floating in white. Cue more fretting.

Then it hit me: a flange! YES!

Hmm. Okay so it's not perfect.

I used Carol's tutorial for the single fold binding, and she's right - it makes for a much cleaner, crisper finish. Thanks Carol!

I'm really happy with this, slightly wonky flange and all - I hope my partner likes it too!

Entered in Quilt Story's Fabric Tuesday link party.

Stash Report, I'm So Behind I've Lost Track of the Weeks Edition

Seriously, I don't even know what week this is for my Stashbusting report. I should just start calling it "alleged stashbusting." But as I rationalized last week, even though I'm not doing a stellar job at sewing out of my stash, I have been inspired to de-stash some fabric I won't ever use and I'm still feeling good about that. Dammit.

Anyway, here it is:
Week 40? (I have no idea) ending October 3, 2010
Used this week: 0 m
Used this year to date: 149.46 m
Added this week: 1 m (it was REALLY CUTE)
Added this year to date: 73.88 m
Net Stash Busted in 2010: 75.58 m

Now that the boring stuff's out of the way, I've got some fun things to report.

I've gone Flickr swap and bee crazy. Scratch that. I've gone CAH-RAY-ZAY. I am addicted/obsessed. And loving every minute of it!!

You saw my mug rug swap goodies a while back and here are the two packages I sent out this week (click to see them bigger):



The buttons and ricrac (rick rack? ric rack? eh, whatever) are from Dressew. Good thing Dressew's quilting fabric is the pits (low quality, not great prices) because it's walking distance from my office. BUT it's fantastic for trims and buttons. Price tags left on so my partners can see what a great deal I got on the goodies (a gag a friend and I use all the time).

I had so much fun and "met" so many great people doing the mugrug swap, I signed up for a handmade Holiday ornament swap that promises to be just as fun. I also took the plunge and joined my first two online bees! I KNOW, right? CAH-RAY-ZAY! But Bees are a terrific way to: meet other like-minded quilters, learn new skills, work with lovely fabric and have fun. I'm really happy I joined.

Sew & Bee Happy is a new bee that's just starting this month. We choose a block and the overall colour scheme, and the 11 other bee members make your block from their stashes and send it. There are 12 members so this one goes for a year. I chose this block for my month (October), and asked for it to be a white background with bright-coloured scrappy "geese." I'm very very excited to see the blocks coming together so beautifully!

Sew Buzzy had a member drop out and I responded to their call for a new member. Its format is more traditional as online bees go - for your month, you choose a block, then send out the fabric to the 11 other members, who sew it up for you and mail it back. I got the fabric yesterday for October's block but I'm going to set it aside while I quilt my polka-dot sampler - I've got all month to do it. (On October 31st as I sew frantically, el Presidente of the Last Minute Club is totally going to remember jinxing myself on October 3rd.)

As you can see, I've been busy, but not blogging. To make it up to all you loyal followers (thanks!), I'm planning something lovely to celebrate my 100th post, which is just around the corner. Already!

Hello, Other Partner

Hello, Other Partner

I've been having so much fun with the mug rugs that I signed up for another partner so more people could join in.

Here's my mug rug for Partner #2, who likes brights and black and white.

The back shows the quilting nicely, I think (click to see it bigger):

Originally uploaded by felicity.quilts

Ocean Waves Mug Rug complete

Mug Rug #1 complete
Originally uploaded by felicity.quilts

This is the actual mug rug for one of my partners. She said she likes purple and caribbean/turquoise blue.


Here's the other side:

I hope she likes it!

Oooh, Shiny!

Beyond the Sea
Admittedly, I have the world's shortest attention span. I'm so SO easily distracted, it's not for believing.

So what's been distracting me lately? MUGRUGS!

The little fishie mugrug was a design that had been floating around (I'm so punny) in my head/sketchbook for a while. Now I know what it will look like in real life - these super-mini quilts are a terrific way to try out new ideas.

Speaking of new ideas and sketchbooks, here are my scribbled ideas for my partner's mugrug. What, you thought I'd made my partner's already? Pshaw! The three mugrugs I've made so far are practice, sillies!



I'm leaning toward option #3. Or maybe #2. Or maybe both - a reversible mugrug!

Felicity's Epiphany

birdie mugrug in action

Go ahead, say that post title three times fast!

I saw Angela's post with her ticker-tape style mugrug and I had an epiphany.

These cuties are the PERFECT medium for trying out new techniques or blocks or whatever. Huzzah!

Behold, an image that was previously only a sketch on some paper came to life as a scrappy mugrug. I got to try out the scribbly raw edge applique technique Anita shows in this tutorial.

Bonus discovery: finishing your binding by machine goes WAY better if you press the binding to the back before you start stitching. Look at these nice corners -- each one was done on a first go!!

And the stitching looks cute on the back, too!

Fabrics were all scraps from my stash. I used a 30-weight dark brown thread on top and in the bobbin for the stitching.