January Modern Quilt Guild Meeting

Had a GREAT time at our guild meeting last night.

Back at the November meeting we traded scraps in a blind swap to make mug rugs for each other, and last night we gave the completed mug rug back to the fabric owner.

Here's a closer look at the mug rug I made for Kelly with her scraps:

 

And here's a bit about my process.  I had wide both wide and narrow strips of most of the fabrics.  I took the wide strip of the leaf print and cut a chunk off that looked about the right size - literally.  No measuring, no squaring up.

Then I took several of the narrow strips, sewed them together, cut off chunks about 1 1/4 inches wide, again not worrying if things were completely straight because I wanted it to feel a little more organic to go with the leaf print.

After sewing on the border I squared it up, added the batting and backing and worked on the quilting.  The first thing I quilted was Kelly's name in the bottom right-hand corner (this was just free-hand):

Then continued from the "y" at the end of her name to stitch just inside the outer border until I got back to the end of her name.  Then I stitched another line in the outer border.  And last I stitched around the middle vein and outside edges of each leaf.  I used my darning foot for all the quilting, including the "straight" stitching around the border to keep the organic feel.

The binding is a Flutterby print from my stash that just seemed perfect; a light pattern to it, and a nice deep brown to frame the piece and set-off the busy patterns.  The binding was a bit of a bear to stitch; I wanted it fairly narrow, but with it only being a 1/4" on each side it was harder to pull around and do the hand stitching on the back.  Probably not something I'd want to do for a larger piece, but I really like it on this piece and am glad I didn't go wider.

And here are a couple close-ups of the mug rug I received from Alyson.  I love it, and it's now lookin' pretty on my desk at work.  I really like the bits of pattern fabric used in the binding; it adds a little something extra that just kicks it up a notch; love it!

The pattern scraps are Meadowsweet left over from an apron, and some coordinating solid scraps I had on hand from a different project.

And - yes, there's more!  We worked on a fun little project last night and everyone left with something COMPLETED!

We made these cute little wallets using paper and vinyl:

Really easy and fun.

Nichole gave a demonstration and walked us through everything - and pre-cut all our vinyl for us.  All we had to do was pick out a sheet of double-sided scrapbook paper, make a few cuts and start sewing.  Pattern is from Martha Stewart.

Happy crafting!!

(And no, I haven't forgotten I promised that post on my word for this year; my only excuse is that I've been busy actually working on something related to my word.  I'm hoping to be ready for posting on all that in the next few days.)