I just finished a hexagonal shaped mug rug for Christmas, and thought I would show how I made the shape.
I can't give the pattern for the appliqué since I was inspired by a beautiful table runner I saw on Pinterest (here is the link). The original reminds me of Drunkard's Path blocks. I made mine using Invisible Machine Appliqué (link to my tutorial) with a simple partial circle for the snowman, circle-ish shapes for the eyes, and a carrot shaped nose. I embroidered a mouth with all 6 strands of embroidery cotton, using a stem stitch. My plan is to design some hexagon mug rugs in the future and wanted to have this tutorial on my blog for reference.
I like hexagon mug rugs because they are a bit different, and seem easier than making a circle mug rug (no bias binding!).
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| I am lucky enough to have this great set my Dad had at Military College. |
I drew a circle, mine has a radius of about 5" (the diameter of the circle will end up being the point to point measurement on the template).
Mark a point on the circle, and keeping the compass at the radius measurement start at the first mark and mark that distance on the circle, repeat until there are 6 equally distant marks on the circle (this is nothing new and I hope it makes sense).
Join the marks with straight lines,
to create a hexagon.
Cut it out (I use an old rotary cutter that I keep for paper), and there is your hexagonal template.
I had cut the appliqué piece slightly larger than then template and after machine quilting I trimmed it using the template.
I used 2 layers of silk batting for this mug rug - it is nice and flat, and I had scraps the right size. All the free motion machine quilting was done with regular sewing cotton.
For the binding I used single layer, 1+1/2" wide strips (this makes the little mug rug lay flatter than a folded, double layer binding). With a walking foot, I stitched the binding on (needle moved over 1/4" from the edge), just like a quilt with regular 90º corners - stitching along one side until 1/4" from the next side, turning the work so the foot is parallel to the new side, backstitching to the edge, lifting the foot, folding the binding to fold, and stitching down the new side.
I didn't quite know what to do with this angle the first time I had to bind one, but this seems to work for me.
The mug rug binding all ready to be stitched down on the back by hand.
I have a chair with a little round table attached and I think a hexagon is a perfect shape for it (this mug rug is about 10" point to point and about 8.5" side to side). The machine quilting is very dense because I wanted the mug rug to be very flat. I quilted double loops on the snowman, micro-stipples in the background and parallel lines on the nose.
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| The Partridges are back for the winter - just a flock of 3 so far. |
