Monday, 16 March 2015

Quick and Easy Easter Mug Rug Tutorial

Quick and Easy Easter Mug Rug Tutorial

This is a quick and easy version of yesterday's tutorial for the Quilted Easter Mug Rug. It's a great alternative if you're not keen on quilting or don't want to have to deal with bias binding.

Just like yesterday, you will need an egg shaped template. Draw a rough egg shape to the size you want. I'm using half an A4 sheet of paper.

Create an egg shaped template
Create your egg shaped template
Cut the shape out to create your template.

Next you will need your top fabric. There are no rules here. One piece of pretty fabric or scraps pieced together, anything goes. Just make sure your fabric is larger than your egg shape. You will be needing to add seam allowance this time, so I recommend making the fabric at least 1'' larger all round. I also recommended adding a little iron-on interfacing to both the top and backing fabric to give your egg a little more stability.

For my top fabric, I decided to get fancy and follow the same concept I used in my I Cheat at Curves placemat tutorial. I had some curvy scraps left over so figured I might as well put them to good use. I even found a neat little trick in keeping the strips in place...interfacing.

***Psssst...If you already have your top fabric sorted, you can skip right past these steps***

Cut some iron-on interfacing roughly to the size required.
Lay out some iron-on interfacing
Lay out some iron-on interfacing (glue side up).
 Lay the first piece down, right side up. Don't iron yet though.

Lay down the first piece
Lay down the first piece
 Lay the next piece down, right side up and overlapping the first piece by about 1/2''.

Overlap the next piece over the previous.
Overlap the next piece over the previous.
Continue in this fashion until you have the required size of fabric. Iron the fabric to the interfacing.

Iron the fabric to the interfacing
Iron the fabric to the interfacing.
This works wonders for keeping the fabric in place when sewing and removes the need for pin or glue basting.

Sew along each seam. Normally I would use a zig zag, but this time I played with some decorative stitches. I mean, it is for Easter after all.

Stitch each seam in place.
Stitch each seam in place.
***If you already have your fabric, thus not using the above technique, then you can start the tutorial again here***

Place your egg template on your fabric. It's hard to see in this image, but I actually also have the backing fabric underneath so that I'm cutting them both to size at the same time.

Place the template on your top and backing fabric
Place the template on your top and backing fabric.
 Cut around your template, leaving about 1/2'' seam allowance.

Cut around the template, adding the seam allowance
Cut around your template. Remember to include the seam allowance.
Lay the top fabric and backing fabric on top of each other, with right sides together and raw edges aligned.

My backing fabric has interfacing to help give the egg some stability.
Layer the top and backing fabric
Layer the top and backing fabric.
Sew around the edge, using a 1/2'' seam allowance. Leave a gap to allow you to turn the egg right side out.
Sew around the egg, leaving a turning gap.
Sew around the egg, leaving a turning gap.
 Clip the curves, turn the egg right side out and press neatly.

Turn the egg right side out
Turn the egg right side out
Topstitch around the edge of the egg to close the gap and keep the seam neat. As you can see, I had some more fun with my decorative stitches.
Topstitch around the edge to close the gap.
Topstitch around the edge to close the gap.
If I were to make this again, I would add more curve to my curves as they came out looking a little straight. Still super cute though.

There you have it. A quick and easy Easter mug rug. How cool is that?

Remember to jump on over to The Sew Quilty Workshop and share your own creations.

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