A Year of Learning About Silhouettes and Mug Rugs

Earlier this week I posted the last of the patterns in my silhouette mug rugs series. I can't believe I actually completed a year's worth of children and their pets! Two mug rugs for each of twelve months - twenty four mug rug patterns in all!

Together at Last!

It's a good thing I didn't know from the beginning that these little characters would develop into a full year of active children and animals. But there they are, one after the other, playing together and making their way through changing seasons and across holidays. Had I been aware, the task would have been so intimidating that I likely would have been scared away. Drawing little people and animals so they come to life is hard! So is coming up with appropriate scenes for every month. Thank goodness I had so much support from my Craftsy friends and that they volunteered wonderful ideas at crucial moments. I would have been in quite a pickle had I been stuck on my own.

I started making patterns with absolutely no prior experience. Designing for myself and making patterns for others are entirely different procedures. It's been quite a learning curve. Along the way I made mistakes, like forgetting to reverse the template for the boy in the July pair and drawing the template of one of the dogs a bit strangely. Then there was the pattern I posted with missing template pages! Yikes! Thank goodness, I heard about those errors right away! My feelings do not get hurt when mistakes are pointed out! I'm just grateful to know so that I can make corrections right away.

Two of my best friends!

 A Few Things I Learned About Mug Rugs:

1. Mini-quilts take patience. That goes for designing and preparing templates as well as for stitching them up. I've changed a number of procedures in template making and in construction.

2. Don't lay the fusible web upside down on your fabric when you're ready to iron. Trying to clean a badly gummed up iron can ruin your day.

3. Always use a stabilizer behind small applique pieces or you may find gathers in the fabrics.

4. Starch is good, especially on binding. When you press and turn starched binding for final stitching, that pressed fold will be crisp and clean and will need little or no pinning.


Tricks Specific to Silhouettes

1. Double the patience with silhouette mug rugs. Never, never pick up the scissors when you're in a hurry. Cut carefully and slowly. Zigzag stitch around the applique pieces patiently. Small errors tend to magnify on little people and animals.

2. Use a very sharp, very small scissors for accuracy when cutting out the templates.

3. Never cut or stitch silhouettes when you are tired! A child might lose a finger, a dog might get a deformed nose, and you just might wear out your seam ripper or use words you don't want your children to hear.

Above all, have fun when making mini quilts. They finish very quickly even though you work slowly, and each little completed work of art is something you can enjoy privately and share proudly.