Mug Rug Madness!

Couple of things before you start reading...

*First, I took the Process Pledge (see the button on the left), so this post will be...lengthy.
**Second, I'm going to mention more about this at the end of the post, but since most of you probably don't care about my particular processes, and I don't think you'll make it that far down, check out Erin's Mug Rug Madness (also see the button on the left...I'm getting too many buttons!).

For the past month or so, I've been in a mug rug kind of mood. I love making them, and they make perfect gifts! Plus, I love the freedom you have with them - they're so small, so you can try out new techniques, or just have fun with it!

First up, I actually made this one several weeks ago, but just never got around to sending it until a few days ago. It's for my friend, Cheri. She's super, uber-crafty, and really, she's the one who originally got me sewing to begin with. A few years ago, before I even owned a sewing machine, I would see some of the stuff she would make and I thought, "Hey, I could do that!" Well, I couldn't...then, at least. I still can't really do the things that she does, and my main focus is quilts now. But she's the reason I bought a sewing machine to begin with.

At the end of last year, she suggested that we do our own swap, and she specifically asked me to make her a mug rug. I asked her what colors she likes, and she said greens and blues. So I got the fabric I wanted at Sew Modern, but I still didn't know what I was going to do with it all. Cheri happened to read this blog post about when I went to Sew Modern the day it opened, and she somehow saw a whale fabric in one of the pictures. So one night, on Facebook chat, she said she really wanted that whale fabric because she loves whales. Little did she know that I already got fabric for her mug rug (not the whale fabric, though), and that gave me an idea! So I began my search to fulfill that idea.

I found what was actually an embroidery pattern here, and used that as a stencil for my whale. Appliqued that little guy on a kind of sky/sea scene, embroidered the spout spray, free-motioned some clouds in the "sky," and did a little wavy line quilting in the "sea." I kept the back simple, because Cheri likes things simple, so I really held back.

Next up is the one I did for Marybeth.  Did you see the Pay it Forward 2011 thing that was going around Facebook at the beginning of the year?  I'm doing that, and Marybeth is on my list, and she also requested a mug rug (see, these things are in high-demand!).  Originally she said she wanted blues and greens, too, but when I talked with her further about it, she said she'd like something yellow, because she's about to repaint her kitchen yellow.  I used a bunch of yellow scraps I had, and then bought this great Robert Kaufman print for the back.  And remember that plus pillow I made for Valentine's Day using Melissa & Co.'s pattern?  Well, I kind of did that with this mug rug, except I didn't actually look at the pattern, so I messed it up a little (but I only figured that out when I was piecing it.  It's not an obvious mistake).  And of course, it's way scaled down.  I really love the way this one turned out. 

Next is Michelle's.  I wanted to make something for Michelle, just because she's a good friend.  And then I realized it was her birthday (this was back in February).  So, I had to get on the ball.  She loves the Beatles, so I found some Beatles fabric on Etsy, but it came in way after her birthday, so I gave her the warning that I was working on something for her, but it would be late.  I had wanted to do a Union Jack for the front of the mug rug, but I could.not. get it to look right.  So I gave up.  One of these days I'll try it again, and actually use a tutorial!  So I finally broke down and asked her what colors she liked.  She gave me a few options, one of them being blue and yellow, since her and her husband are UCLA grads.  So I kind of used this tutorial for a starburst block, but stopped piecing when I thought it was big enough for the size I was going for.  That's why I say I kind of used the tute, because I didn't go through the whole thing.  After it was all said and done, I thought it kind of looked like spotlights, like at Hollywood?  Which was kind of cool, too, since we live in LA, and Michelle and I just recently had a Hollywood adventure (I really need to blog about that!).  The back, obviously, I just left simple with the Beatles fabric, and I did some herringbone quilting.  I figured this one is really a reversible mug rug - if she's feeling some Bruins love, she can have the blue and yellow spotlight side up.  If she's feeling more Beatlesy that day, she can have the Beatles side up.

Last, but not least, is for my dear friend, Melissa.  Melissa's awesome, and she's done some pretty thoughtful things for me in the short time we've known each other (see this post), so I wanted to make something for her.  She moved away back in November, but she was going to be coming in town, so I wanted to have it done for her when she got here.  She loves color spectrums, and what do you know, I won a color spectrum fabric bundle at the last LAMQG meeting!  Even before I got that though, I knew I wanted to do something rainbow-ish for her mug rug.  I found this great Kokka fabric for the back on etsy totally randomly, so after I won that bundle, I was set!  She also loves hexagons, so I just kind of went with that and came up with this design.  And of course, I used Liz's machine-piecing hexagons tutorial, because it's the best. To go with the rainbow-theme, I quilted in an arch pattern.  Come to find out, the day before she came in town was her birthday, so it was kind of good timing on my part to have already had this made.

This past Saturday, I had a little sew day at my house, and Katy came over.  She coined the term "March Mug Rug Madness" for our sew day - the boys have their basketball and mustaches, we have our mug rugs.  She actually started and finished a mug rug while she was here!  I was so proud.  She won my giveaway back in February, and since she's the one who won, I threw in a few Bliss hexagons for her, because she loves her some Bliss.  I had already pieced most of those hexagons, but she did a couple, then put the whole thing together.  Go Katy!

I think that's enough mug rugs for me - for now at least!  If you still can't get enough, you'll have to check out Erin's blog March 21-31, for her Mug Rug Madness!  She'll have tutorials and GIVEAWAYS!  So check it out.

Robert Kaufman Solids Challenge - Over!

Edit:  You guys, I'm such a dummy!  I typed out this post over a couple of hours, and alot of interruptions, and so my train of thought was kind of broken.  But I completely failed to mention that we had the great Jacquie from Tallgrass Prairie Studio as a guest speaker last night!  She was amazing, and she brought in several of her quilts to show.  Her passion and love for quilting showed in her work and her words.  She was truly inspirational, and I'm so glad she visited us!

Back in January, I posted about the Robert Kaufman Solids Challenge that the LAMQG (and other guilds) was participating in.  When I posted about it, I said I had a designed all sketched out.  That was true. 

However, I totally did not go with that sketch.  I wasn't feelin' it.

I decided to do something circle-y.  I told my husband (who is a very good listener, even though I know he probably really doesn't care) that I was thinking of doing circles.  Then I told him how I could just applique them, but that wasn't much of a challenge since I've done that several times before, and that there was this method to piecing the circles that would be more challenging for me.  He said I should definitely do the more challenging one.  This was called a "challenge" after all, right?

So that's what I decided to do.  My very first LAMQG meeting back in May, when I knew absoulely NOTHING about quilting (Stippling?  What's that?  Is that a dirty word?), Latifah gave a demonstration on Dale Fleming's 6 Minute Circle technique.  It took me a while and a lot of watching the video to help me wrap my head around the concept, but once I got it, it really was pretty easy.

I wanted to give the circles more flair, so I decided to wonkily piece together some of the insides of the circles.  Here's my test block (excuse the wrinkles!).

It's not so great, but I practiced some more before I started the real thing.

So I picked out a white cotton fabric from Ikea as my background, picked out the colors I wanted to highlight from the charm pack, and went to town!

But when I got it all pieced, I just really didn't like it.  It was very boring to me.  This is what it looked like before it was sandwiched - I happened to have this Valori Wells print that I thought matched the colors I picked out for the top, and it was the exact same size as the top, so I went with that for the back.

At some point, I just wanted to throw in the towel, because I just didn't like this.  But then I thought about all of those reality competition shows I watch, and how annoying it is when someone just drops out because they just don't want to be there anymore, or because whatever competition they're doing is too hard.  Do you know what I'm talking about?  I took one of those charm packs at the January meeting, and I needed to finish this, because some people didn't get a charm pack, and didn't get to participate.  Cheesy, I know, but that was my thought process.

So I decided I needed to step up this quilt, big time.  I really, really wanted to try pebbling, and I figured since this was a pretty small quilt, it would be perfect for it!  (I heard that you don't want to do pebbling on a big project - little did I realize that this was a big project for pebbling)  I also decided to use thread in a similar color as whatever circle I was quilting around, and use white thread within the circles.  I think that's one of the main things I would change, because it turns out that you can't really see the piecing I did in some of those circles with it quilted over.

About 10 spools of thread later, here's the finished product -

I chose yellow for the binding, because I happened to have some yellow that I don't know if I'll ever use, and it matched the back.  Here's a close up of the quilting...see what I mean about how it masks the piecing inside the circle?

Anyways, the quilting took several hours over several days.  I was.not.happy with it.  At all.  But our meeting was on Thursday, and I finished, so I was happy about that. 

Finally, our meeting came, and we all revealed our finished quilts.  There were some AMAZING quilts shown.  And I couldn't believe how many of us actually took on the challenge!  Then we were all given ballots to vote for our favorites in different categories - best overall, best use of color, most unique, etc.  At the end of the meeting, they announced the winners.  I was not surprised that I didn't win anything.

THEN...

They said there was one additional prize - the officers choice, which was for the quilt who came close a few times, but just missed it.

And then they said my name. 

And THEN my jaw dropped.

"I am Jack's complete lack of surprise."

So I won something, and I never win anything!  And for me, this was a pretty big thing to win!

Also, doorprizes are handed out at every meeting, but I've never won before, in my 10 months of going to meetings.  Last night, I won one of those, too!  I had a lucky day.  (I won a giveaway a few days ago, that I haven't blogged about yet, because I'm waiting to get my loot, but I think that may have turned my losing streak around for me!)  To say I was a happy camper last night is a HUGE understatement.

I still don't really like the quilt, but maybe I need a time-out from it.  Maybe I spent too many hours with it, and I'm just sick of it.  I don't know...But it will be put to good use, as it's a perfect size to use for the girls in their double stroller.

The Valentine's Pair

I decided that one Valentine's Day Pillow just wouldn't do, and that My Scrappy Valentine (that's what I'm calling the first one I made) was lonely, and needed a partner.

Conveniently, my friend Melissa just co-wrote a pattern for a cross pillow, so I took the opportunity (especially since I didn't have any other ideas) to test out their pattern for the coordinating pillow.  I used my bigger scraps for this one, and I like that more of the fabrics are shown as opposed to Scrappy.

I have to say, I've seen these cross pillows on Flickr, and they kind of intimidated me.  But the instructions were super easy, and it came together rather quickly!  I did more of the heart quilting - mainly to tie the two pillows together, but also because it really is a fun way to quilt something, and I don't know what else I would ever make that would call for it. 

So can you guess what I'm calling this one?

It's obvious, I think...

Cross My Heart!

Cute, huh?

Okay, so here's the pair together.  Don't they look cozy and happy?

Create! A Project a Day - February 1, 2 & 3

Another Kelly, over at Thinking Out Loud, started a Flickr group dedicated to doing something crafty every day in February.  It sounded good to me, so I signed up!

On the 1st, I made a new camera strap.

Um, this was supposed to be for someone else, but after I took these pictures, I put it on my own strap to see how it fit, and it was S-N-U-G!  I was wrestling with it, and pulling it, and tugging, and finally I thought, "Hey, maybe I'll just keep this one, and make a duplicate!"  After all, the camera strap I made almost a year ago is great and all, but I never really felt it was "me."  This one is much more me than that one was!  So I checked out the VW fabric and realized that my little scrap of it was not going to be enough to make an exact duplicate.   But I'm keeping this one anyway. 

Oops! 

It really is stuck. 

The only way it's coming off is if I cut it off!

Really...I promise!!

Okay, let's just move on...

On the 2nd, I began a pillow cover.  I really wanted something that was for Valentine's Day that I could put on our couch, but I didn't want to spend any money.  So I raided my scraps, for the first time ever!  It was challenging for me - kind of like a really hard jigsaw puzzle.  But at the same time, it was kind of cool.  Some pieces fit perfectly together.  Others needed to be trimmed to the smaller piece I was sewing it to.  All in all, it turned out to be a great use of scraps, and it was a really good experience for me.  Now I want to see what else I can come up with strictly scraps! 

Oh, and the linen?  That's completely and totally scrimped and scrapped and pieced so it just fit the size I needed it to.  I couldn't believe it.  I literally do not have one scrap of that linen left!  If I was making this for someone else, I wouldn't have pieced the linen as much as I did...but since it's for us and our couch, I figured there was no harm in that.

Today, the 3rd, I began the quilting on the pillow cover.  At first, I didn't know what kind of quilting I wanted to do.  And then it came to me - HEARTS!  But me and my free motion skills weren't exactly on speaking terms.  So I practiced, and messed around with the tension on my machine until I found where it should be.  When I started the quilting on it, I couldn't stop!  I was having so much fun with these little hearts!  So I decided to quilt the hearts in off-white within the red and pink pieced part, and then use pink thread for the hearts on the linen.  I did each heart three times to give it more of a sketchy look.

So I took advantage of every spare second I had today, and worked on this thing until I finished it!  I just have to say that I really LOVE the way this turned out!

I also added a little applique heart on the back.  I used fusible batting so it puffs out a little.

So, that's me catching up for this month's daily craftiness.  I probably won't post every day, but I do plan on doing something crafty everyday, and then just catching it all up in one post like this every few days.  You should play along, too! 

I call this pillow "My Scrappy Valentine."

Oh, and I might as well do the Blogger's Pillow Party again!  I didn't foresee myself making another pillow anytime soon, but I guess the timing is good!

Adventures in Stippling

See this little baby?

I found a free motion foot for my machine on Amazon for $3.75! The normal price is $20! I'm not gonna lie, I did a little happy dance when I saw that price. You see, my husband and I are on the cheap frugal side, so this really just made my day. I never really wanted to get into stippling because it really intimidated me, but recently I've been dying to try it! So I jumped right in.

That's a good thing, and a bad thing.

I was making a quilt for a friend's baby (who's shower is this Saturday), and I decided to have my first stippling go on that.

That's the bad part.

Unfortunately, either the tension was off, or I had a bad bobbin, but for whatever reason, the stitching on the back is not great. I did a little section, saw the bad stitching, so I took it all out, switched out my bobbin, and tried again. I only checked the back at the very beginning, and it was great! However, it didn't stay great during the whole stitching session. And I did kind of go a little crazy! I didn't know stippling could be fun! So I got carried away, and when I came to a stopping place, I turned it around and saw the yucky stitches again. I stitched WAY too much of it to want to turn around and tear it out.

So I came up with a scheme plan.

I failed to mention that I used some out of print Heather Ross fabric for this little quilt (and it is
little), and I had kind of started falling in love with it as I was working on it, so when I realized how bad the back was, I thought instead of ripping all of that stitching out, why not just keep this one, and give it to Kendall for a doll quilt? I already had the idea to make both of my girls doll quilts for Christmas anyway, and this is just getting a head start.

Right?

Yeah, that's it!

When I showed Kendall the quilt, her reaction just solidified my scheme new idea. She gasped and said, "Good job, Mama! Give me five!"

By the way, me getting to keep this quilt is the good part...I think...Right? Is it good to keep something you intended to giveaway?

Sure, why not!

So it won't be a perfect little doll quilt, but it will be super cute. And she loves it already. And this is one less thing I have to do for Christmas (I do plan on actually giving it to her at Christmas).

Now I just need to figure out what's causing my stitching to go bad, and finish the quilt. In the meantime, here's a little peak at what it looks like.

By the way, I realize I have a long way to go in my stippling skills, but I'm happy with what I've done, and I'm eager to do more!