Phew! What a week - and some mug-rug love

This has been one CRAZY week! I lost all my regular kid-sitting help, including my husband (who changed his work schedule this week), and had to fit in my work-from-home job around running after and caring for our almost three year old tot. And holy crap am I exhausted! The little one is napping right now, so I'm taking this opportunity to have a cup of tea and do a little recipe reading. I can't be the only one that occasionally reads recipes just for fun, am I?

I did make a little time to sew this week, and decided to try making some mug-rugs. I had an "ah-hah!" moment the other day, realizing that I could use making some mug-rugs as an excuse to practicing some piecing and quilting techniques!

First, I wanted to piece some strips together just to cut them apart again. I used some blue and green vintage fabrics to start with.

Then I wanted to try foundation piecing, and used the strips I just cut up with some white and a little bit of orange. I used muslin for the base, and knew the final block would be big enough to cut at least two mug-rugs from.

I wanted to practice stitching in the ditch with the new center guide sole for my Walking Foot #50, which worked like a dream. I tried stitching in the ditch only one other time to discover it is not as easy as it looks. I also added a few other straight lines of stitching using painter's tape, following the edge with the blade on the center guide sole, and it looks pretty darn great!

And last but not least, I really wanted some more binding practice. Corners are hard, and I  needed to practice getting the binging the same size on BOTH sides of something. Also not as easy as it looks!

I was able to get three 6-ish by 9-ish inch mug-rugs and one doll-sized mug-rug from the block I created.

I actually never thought I'd ever make a mug-rug, but this is a great way to practice just a little bit and still have something neat to use when finished. Now I think I'm hooked!