Mug Rug Tutorial - A Round Tuit

I've been making a few mug rugs lately to practice my quilting.

This one is the first I have designed myself - so I thought I'd share how I made it - in case you'd like your very own Round Tuit!

This is a double sided mug rug - and some of you may recognise it as the same design as the button for Monday's linky party

So here's how to make the mug rug:

Materials you will need:

2 squares green fabric 21 x 21 cm (8.5 x 8.5")

1 square piece batting (I usually use fleece)  for the inside 'padding'   also 21 x 21 cm (8.5 x 8.5")

White fabric A4 paper size, plus fusible webbing (eg Vliesofix) same size.

White fabric for binding - 6 x 100cm (2.5 x 39.5")

Round Tuit template - you can download this here.

First you need to print the Round Tuit template onto your fabric.

To do this - cut your fusible webbing to A4 paper size then iron onto the back of your white fabric:

And cut the fabric to size around the paper.

This is what you now feed through your regular computer printer to print the template onto:

Cut out the two circles:

Now you're ready to start putting your mug rug together:

Peel the backing paper off your two circles so the fusible webbing is ready to iron on.  Then place each circle in the centre of one of the green squares of fabric. To find the exact centre fold each piece in quarters and finger press the centre folds  - then match these with the circle and the square.

Cover with a damp cloth and then iron to fuse the circles to the green squares.

NB - After ironing to fuse the fabrics together - iron over the printed fabric without the damp cloth. The heat apparently helps seal the ink so it doesn't wash out!

Then using the applique setting on your machine, or a tight zig-zag, stitch around the edge of both circles to neaten and secure:

Now you need to layer your front and back green squares - facing outwards with your batting square in the middle. Pin all 3 layers together

You can line up the circles front and back just by feeling the edges with your fingers:

Now to the quilting.

I chose wavy lines as I like the look of them and they are easy and fun to stitch!

I just ran a series of lines on the green fabric only. I did not quilt over the circles so as not to have lines going over the writing:

Almost there!!

Trim the edges of your square to neaten them:

Now you're ready to add the binding.

For this - I'm still practising, but so far the clearest tutorial I've found is this one here from the blog Contented.

I'm still trying to save time and do all the binding by machine rather than hand, but so far I haven't managed to get it neat enough! 

For a neater finish - I would recommend hand-stitching as the binding tutorial recommends!

NB

I'm using up my scrap fabric to make my mug rugs so didn't have a 1m (39.5") long strip for the binding.

I joined 3 shorter pieces together to make this by joining like you see in the pictures which makes the seams less bulky:

Once you've added your binding - you're all done - sit back and enjoy a cuppa and chocolate biscuit on your very own Round Tuit Mug Rug!

Admire it lots too!

For the downloadable version of this tutorial, click here.

If you liked this tutorial there are many more on 

My Free Sewing Tutorials page

Happy Sewing!

Mug Rug round up

I've made quite a few mug rugs now so I thought it would be nice to have a look at them all together.

I made this one in 2011 -

A blue mug rug 

This egg mug rug .

A Heart Mug Rug 

And finally this Colour Block Mug Rug 

I'm pretty pleased with them all - and they're very functional and useful things to make to practice my quilting and use up some of my scrap fabric stash!

Watch out next week when I reveal my first Mug Rug designed by me!!  Complete with tutorial!

Colour block mug rug

This week for my mug rug quilting practice I followed a tutorial for a Scrappy Colour block Mug Rug from Sew Fantastic.

I'm quite pleased with the result - but I have to say it was a lot of work cutting out all the small pieces and putting them together.  I great way to use up some very small scraps though!

For the backing I used part of an old dress of my daughter's! A nice sparkly one!

For the binding - I followed a great detailed and clear tutorial from Contented.

I was really happy with how it was going and how neat it looked until I chose to ignore the part at the end that said to hand stitch the last side of the binding.  Being lazy, I machine stitched it, and missed a few bits I had to restitch!

Still - I think I'm getting better at those mitred corners!

And all these mug rugs are providing a good excuse for the odd cuppa with tasty snacks!!

Crochet video tutorial 2 - how to make an amigurumi monster

So - my second crochet video tutorial has now been published on my youtube channel!

I got my daughter to watch it and test it out yesterday - and she made her first amigurumi monster - see above!!

She did so well and is very proud of it!

It was lovely to watch her work..

I think she especially liked adding the beads for the nose and mouth, as afterwards she made this little creation to practice!

So here it is!

I didn't add any music this time, so it seems a bit quiet at the parts when I'm not speaking - and it's quite a bit longer than the last one, but I tried to break it down into smaller sections - that beginners (like me) can follow and produce their very own crazy amigurumi monster!!

Do let me know what you think!!

A heart mug rug

Better late than never, here's this week's mug rug.

Now I know last week after trying a mug rug with no binding, I said I was going to find one with so I could practice. 

Well - instead I found a cute heart mug rug tutorial and just couldn't resist trying another binding alternative - adding a ruffled edge!

The tutorial was easy to follow for someone with basic sewing knowledge. It doesn't lead you through every little step - but more gives you general directions with some nice photos!

I really liked the ruffled edge as an alternative to binding! And the patchwork helped me use up some of my small scraps!

Now I really will get back to a mug rug with binding practice next week!

Now - it's time to enjoy my cup of tea with a sneaky chocolate egg!

New crochet video coming soon!

Sorry I've been a little quiet on the blog this week.  It's school holidays so I'm spending a little time with my girls - but they also have a few days of boot camp - which has let me get my second crochet video tutorial done - how to make these crazy, ugly and simple amigurumi monsters!

I'll test the video out on my kids and should have it all uploaded and ready to go at the beginning of next week!

Anyone can make these - even beginner crocheters! It's not about perfection - it's about creating something as you learn and practice!

If you've not seen my first video tutorial - you can see it here!

Better eyesight!

Today I wanted to share something with you that I'm very excited about.

I went to the opticians at the weekend for an eye check.

I've worn glasses for distance vision since I was about 10 years old.

I've also over the years since then read a lot about improving vision without glasses.  But that has been the problem - I've read lots, but not done enough!

But a few weeks ago that changed!

(You can read more about what changed if you're interested here.)

Now, after almost 4 weeks of sticking to my eye exercises 3 or more times a day, every day, I've noticed a big change - and I was so pleased when the optician told me a couple of days ago that my eyes have improved to the stage that I no longer need glasses to drive!

Yippeee!

So today I went and got my drivers license changed from this:

(S means spectacles should be worn when driving)

to this....

I'm still continuing with the eye exercises to improve my eyesight further!

My daughter is also doing the exercises with me as she is beginning to have a little trouble with reading things at distance.

After our trip to the opticians, we also found that she has one eye weaker than the other, so he recommended wearing an eye-patch a little each day to strengthen the weaker eye.

So I made her a nice soft eye-patch 

(there's my crafty side to this post!):

Do you wear glasses? Have you ever tried eye exercises?

If you're interested - here's the website I got the eye exercises and charts from:

http://www.vision-training.com/

It's just so great to see a reward for sticking to something consistently! Now I have to apply the same level of determination and consistent effort to other areas of my life! I'm excited about what I'm capable of achieving when I put my mind to it!

How about you?