sewtakeahike

Mug Rug Madness Tutorial!

 

Have you heard of Mug Rug Madness?  Erin is near the end of hosting 10 days of mug rug tutorials by some really talented ladies, and at the end of the 10 days, she will be giving all ten of the mug rugs away!  Make sure you go here to enter.

 

 

The mug rug that I created for Mug Rug Madness is this little guy, which I call "under the umbrella".  How would you like to make your very own "under the umbrella"?  Well let me show you how!!

What you will need:

• umbrella template 
• scraps of fabric for umbrella pieces, floral background, and rain background (a piece about 11X9 will work)
• 6X8.5" fabric for backing
• binding
• embroidery thread for umbrella handle and rain quilting

Directions:

1.  Pin each part of the umbrella to your desired fabric which is right side up.  Cut out each template piece, leaving a 1/4 inch seam allowance around each template.

 

2.  Sew the umbrella pieces together.

 

(if you need help with sewing curved seams together, take a look at my tut here)

3.  Choose your "under the umbrella" fabric and cut the top edge of it so it matches the curves of the lower edge of the umbrella.

 

4.  Using a 1/4" seam, sew the lower edge of the umbrella to the "under the umbrella" fabric, making sure to stop and turn the piece when you come to the seams of the umbrella so you get nicer points.

 

 

5.  Press, then trim away any excess.

 

 

 

6.  Lay your umbrella piece on top of the rain fabric and cut around it with a rotary cutter.

 

 

7.  Using a 1/4 inch seam, sew the umbrella piece to the rain fabric.  This part isn't exact, but don't worry, it will all be ok in the end!

 

 

8.  Trim the piece so it is 6X8.5

 

 

9.  Make a quilt sandwich that consists of the backing, right side down, then batting, then the mug rug top, right side up, and hand quilt the rain and umbrella handle.

 

 

10.  Bind your mug rug and you're done!

 

 

If you make an "under the umbrella" of your own, please do add your pics to the I made it! {from a sewtakeahike pattern} flickr group!

 Have a great week, everyone and make sure you've entered the mug rug giveaway over at Erin's!!

~Penny

 

winners!

 

 

Short and sweet, but not without a photo of a window block I completed this weekend for Lucinda in the busy bees bee:

the grand prize winner of the Saral paper rolls and the scrap pack is:

#28- char, who said: Great pillow. Thanks for the tutorial.

and the four winners of the Saral paper sampler packs are:

#78- adrienne, who said: Cool! I must make one of these!!!

#104- craftydill, who said: Fantastic project...thanks for sharing!! And thanks for the chance for the Saral paper- it looks like it could be very useful! -Michelle

 #96- Angela, who said: such a cute pillow penny. I would love to win the paper because this technique is right up my ally! Pick me! Pick me

#132- kris, who said: I want to make a pillow like this. It is just darling! Thanks for the tutorial. It's on my list!

Congratulations winners! 

Please email me with your mailing addresses!

 

lol.ly, lol.ly, lo.lly, get your saral here!

 

(a few fq napkins I've made up by cutting a fq down to 18X18 and then doing a simple 1/4 turned edge (twice) and a mitered corner.  Jane got me going at our MQG meeting at my house on Wednesday.  Thanks Jane!!  What I love about this mis-matched set is as they get icky, I can replace them with another fq that doesn't have to match!)

Don't know what I'm talking about with the Lolly stuff?  Click here!  It's what I watched on tv when I was a kid!

I've had several people comment on the saral paper giveaway that they've looked for saral paper and couldn't find it, oooooooor, just want to know where to get it.  So I emailed Ben at Saral and this is what he had to say,

"every retail store might stock Saral in a different section.  It will likely be located in the "Art Materials" area if a store has one, but that is a generic category, and every store breaks things down differently.  My suggestion to your readers would be to ask a store employee or manager if and where they carry Saral...and then of course to completely flip out if they don't have it!" 

So there you have it!  He also mentioned, you can order it directly from the Saral Paper Corp. website.

And for those of you who want to see it and feel the packaging before purchasing, try Hobby Lobby, Michaels, or maybe Joann's craft stores!

p.s.  don't forget to enter the giveaway, here!

 

vintage saral project and a giveaway!!

 

 

As I said in this post, the cameo project went through a, uh hmmm, major transformation. 

 

 

And I'm so happy I switched gears and focused on inanimate objects. 

For those of you who would like to make your own Vintage Saral pillow, here's how to do it!!

Materials and Supplies needed:

• 25- 5.5" squares of batting
• 12- 4.5" squares of gingham
• 13- 5.5" squares of white linen
• bunches of scraps
• 27"X27" backing fabric
• 2 cover-able buttons
• 3 1/2 to 4- 8 oz. packages of polyfil
• crochet thread in a contrasting color
• embossing stylus for tracing
• saral transfer paper
• free motion quilting foot
• walking foot (not absolutely necessary, but helpful)

 

The first thing I did was google "vintage kitchen images", and from the links that came up, I chose all my images from this particular link.  The images I worked from are this one, this one, this one, and this one.  I printed them off at a reduced scale, so they would fit on a 5.5" square.  For the little flower star, I used the image that is between the pics of the women on ruby star rising fabric.

Instructions:

1.  Set aside 5 of the batting squares along with 5 of the white linen squares.  These will become the corners and the center block of the pillow.

2.  Layer a 5.5" piece of linen, right side up, saral paper, right side down, and then lay the image you are going to trace on top of that.  Trace the image onto the linen, making sure it is centered. 

3.  Lay a square of 5.5" batting on the back of the linen and use your free motion quilting foot, and whatever thread color you choose to free motion quilt the image onto the linen, following the lines created from the saral paper.

4.  Repeat steps 2-3 for all images. I made 4 of the flower-star blocks and 4 of the vintage kitchen blocks.

   

 

 

5.  Next, lay one of the 4.5" squares of gingham somewhat centered onto a 5.5" square of batting.

6.  With the right side down, line up the edges of a scrap strip of fabric with one gingham edge and sew down using a 1/4 seam. 

 

Open the seam, iron, and repeat this process around the gingham until all 4 sides have a scrap of fabric. Trim the fabric so it is the same size as the batting square.

7.  Repeat steps 5-6 eleven more times so you have a total of 12 gingham/scrap squares.

8.  Arrange and sew your squares together like so:

 

9.  Next, cut your square into a circle.  To accomplish this, I used a homemade sort of compass by tying a pen and a pencil together with a string that was 12.5 inches long in between the pencil and pen.  I placed the pencil in the center of the center block and used the pen to make the circle by drawing onto the batting. 

 

This wasn't an exact process, but it gave me a circle that I was happy with.  Once the circle is traced onto the batting, cut the circle out.

 

10.  Next, trace around the pillow front onto the wrong side of the backing fabric and cut the circle out of the backing fabric.

11.  To make the gusset, cut several 4" wide fabric strip scraps at different lengths and sew them together, using 1/4" seams.  For my circle, I needed a gusset that was 79" long, which included a 1/4" seam allowance.  Measure around your circle to make sure how long your gusset needs to be, since the circumference of your circle might be slightly smaller or larger than mine.  My gusset measurements were 4"X79".

12.  Sew the ends of the gusset strip together with a 1/4" seam allowance.

13.  Pin the gusset, right sides together with the pillow front, and sew together, using a 3/8" seam.

 

14.  Pin right sides together and sew the other edge of the gusset onto the pillow back using a 3/8" seam, making sure to leave a 3" opening for turning and stuffing.

15.  Turn your pillow so it is right side out and stuff with 3-4 bags of polyfil.

16.  Slip stitch the opening closed (by hand).

17.  Using the crochet thread and a running stitch, stitch around the gusset seams 3/8" in from the seam around the top and bottom of the pillow.

 

 

18.  Sew your covered buttons onto the center front and back of the pillow, pulling the thread through the center of the pillow and pulling it taught.

 

Now for the giveaway!

The wonderful folks at Saral have graciously decided to give away 5 prizes.  The grand prize winner will get 3 ROLLs of saral paper.  One each of graphite, white, and blue.  (That'll stock you up for a long, long time!)

AAAAND, a fabric scrap bundle from me

 

to get you started with your Vintage Saral pillow!

Also,

4 other winners will receive a sampler pack of saral paper!  This is a wonderful sampler pack, and will also last a really long time!

Ok, so go ahead. Leave a comment to be entered in the drawing!  I'll leave the comments open until Saturday afternoon sometime and choose the winners then.

Good luck to you all!!

The giveaway is now closed!!!

~Penny

full (moon) weekend

 

Wasn't the moon just awesome this weekend???  I didn't actually get any pics of it, but it was so bright, the image is burned into my mind.

This weekend, we took the pop up down to Buena Vista and camped on the Ark River.  Lenny kayaked with some friends, and I got a few new blocks prepared for my workshop in a couple of weeks.

My L-man

 

Here's the gang at the put in, and on the river.

It was kind of eerie seeing the river without ice or snow this early, but the powers that be decided to do an early release of water from the dams since they're expecting the water levels to be high this year due to the level of snow pack in the mountains.  This is going to be an awesome year for kayaking in the Rockies!

And would you look at this fab furniture at the take out?  It's all tiles, and the floor lamp even has bulbs in it!  Pretty cool!

 

And would you look at this??  Lauree made this doll quilt top out of the asterisk in the funky peppermint table runner pattern!

 

Isn't it awesome??  I'm in love with her gray background and linen combo!!

I hope you all had a fab weekend, and make sure to check back on Wednesday for the Saral Project tutorial and giveaway!!

~Penny