Quilting the Lucky Monkey Tail Mug Rug to life

Lucky Monkey Tail Mug Rug

I feel grateful and lucky to share this tutorial for a Lucky Monkey Tail Mug Rug with you! Today is the day we quilt the Lucky Monkey Tail Mug Rug to life.

Sew the layers together

 

Selvage fabric for mug rug backing

Will you believe me when I tell you that I had this piece of made selvage fabric in my stash that's the exact size I needed for the mug rug? Well I did! {trust me you don't want to see my original prototype for this rug - which was much bigger and well, not so cute}.

You can cut a piece of fabric to size to use for the backing or make your own piece of made selvage fabric using my tutorial.

Pin layers together for quilting

If you used pieced selvage fabric like me, you might want to skip adding the batting. My selvages are pieced onto another piece of fabric and, with so many stitching lines, it's already a very firm piece of backing. Place the pieced selvage fabric right side up and place the mug rug on top right side down.

If you're using three layers, lay the batting down first, followed by your backing fabric right side up and the mug rug on top right side down.

Pin around all the sides, leaving a turning gap. Note that I put mine along the left side in the photo above where there is the only space with no seams!

I also pin ¼ʺ before the end of each side so I avoid sewing into the seam allowance. I also put two pins at the point before the turning gap where I want to stop sewing.

Sew all the way around the mug rug from your starting pin to your ending pins.

Check the mug rug side of your sandwich and make sure that the line you sewed secured all the layers together. You can trim a little bit at each corner to help them lay flat.

Turn the mug rug right side out, using your finger or a small tool (a chopstick, a mechanical pencil) to push out the corners.

Topstitch to close

Bring both threads to the top

Now we're going to topstitch around the edge of the mug rug to close the turning gap and help the mug rug lay flat. Press and fold in the turning gap edges and pin.

Before you start, bring both of your threads to the top of your mug rug: to do this simply start your first stitch and then pull gently on both threads before making the next stitch and pull the bobbin thread up by pulling on the loop of thread. This helps prevent a little thread nest growing on the back of your mug rug!

One more thing - I used a pink thread on top and a light tan thread in the bobbin. Both threads blend in with their respective sides of the mug rug and help focus on the monkey tail quilting.

Topstitch ⅛” around the outside of the mug rug.

Contrasting thread highlights Lucky Monkey Tail

I used a brown thread on top and the light tan in the bobbin again. I changed to my see-through presser foot and did blanket stitching around the tail.

I only quilted around the tail on the mug rug. You might choose to only free motion quilt in the background fabric - go for it!

That's it! The quilting is done on your Lucky Monkey Tail Mug Rug!

P.S.

Lucky Monkey Tail Mug Rug and fortune cookie fabric

I couldn't resist making my own fabric fortune cookie - and fortune! - to go with my Lucky Monkey Tail Mug Rug. I mostly followed the directions given here:)

Thanks for quilting with me!

Piecing the Lucky Monkey Tail Mug Rug

Lucky Monkey Tail Mug Rug

In today's post we'll put together the Lucky Monkey Tail Mug Rug. I've included lots of photos and piecing advice. In projects like this where there are lots of small pieces and seams, accurate piecing is important to make sure the final product looks good. Good luck and enjoy!

Layout

Layout of Lucky Monkey Tail Mug Rug

Lay out units and cut pieces on a design wall or board. If you don't have either, take a photo of the pieces laid out to refer to in case they get moved around or you get confused while sewing the pieces together.

We'll sew the rows into two units as the photo above illustrates.

Accurate piecing is in the details

Asterisks show pieces to repress for seam nesting purposes

On the units marked in the photo, repress the seams in the opposite direction to help seams lay flat so points join accurately.

Sew each row together, pressing when you finish each row.

Press all of the seams on the top row to the right and on the bottom row to the left.

Sew the two rows together. Press to the top row.

Connect as columns

Sew as columns

For the bottom half of the mug rug, sew the pieces together in columns first as shown by the arrows in the photo above.

As for pressing:

in the 1st column press both seams to the middle background square;

in the 2nd column press the seam to the gold square;

in the 3rd column press the seam to the gold rectangle;

and in the 4th column, press the seam to the background rectangle.

Sew the columns together, pressing each seam to the right.

Two halves make a whole mug rug

Two halves of Lucky Monkey Tail Mug Rug

It's time to sew together the two halves of the mug rug. Pin at each seam and press the seam to the top half.

We've finished putting together the front of the Lucky Monkey Tail Mug Rug! Our last step is to layer and quilt it. Lucky us!

Trimming makes accurate Half Square Triangle units

With all of our lucky fabrics picked out and cut, the next task is to make the Half Square Triangle (HST) units for the Lucky Monkey Tail Mug Rug. For this project the pieces are cut larger than required so that we can trim our units to the correct size. I find this method the quickest way - without any special tools - to make accurate units. When working with small pieces it's even more important than regular quilting to have accurate units to sew together. Let's get started!

Make Half Square Triangle units

Sew together 6 sets of squares to make HSTs

materials

4 sets of background fabric and gold 2½ squares, which when sewn together, will make a total of 8 background/gold HSTs

2 sets of background fabric and green 2½" squares, which will make a total of 4 background/green HSTs

Mark diagonal line on back of background fabric square

Draw on the wrong side of the six background fabric 2½" squares one diagonal line.

Match up four background squares right side facing with four gold 2½" squares.

Match up the remaining two background squares right side facing with two green 2½" squares.
Sew ¼ʺ away from each side of the line on all six squares.

Making two HST units at once by cutting on drawn line

I chain piece these units by sewing down one side of each square one after the other without cutting the threads in between.

Then I turn the string of squares and sew down the opposite side on all of the squares before removing from the machine.

Cut on the drawn line. Press the seam to the darker fabric.

Time for some accurate trimming

Trim units to 2" square

Trim each unit to 2" square.

My best tips here are to take your time, in good lighting, and hold the ruler firmly in place when cutting. Notice how the 45 degree angle line on the ruler lines runs exactly between the two halves - this will ensure your half square triangles are the same size. Turn the unit and trim the other two sides as well.

This method creates accurate half square triangles by trimming units to size after creating them. These are the only units we need to make - now to layout the design and put it all together!

Fat quarters for a Lucky Monkey Tail Mug Rug

Lucky Monkey Tail Mug Rug

Choosing LUCKY colors for your mug rug

Chinese New Year arrives on February 8th this year and it's the Year of the Fire Monkey. Why not celebrate by making a Lucky Monkey Tail Mug Rug for your quilting space to bring luck and prosperity to your quilting endeavors this year!

When I started looking for inspiration on what to include in my Lucky mug rug I found the monkey surrounded by gold peach blossoms and sometimes even holding a peach. The peach symbolizes longevity and gold is connected to prosperity. Red is also a color choice here as it represents fire. I chose to make my monkey tail gold and found this fabric with swirls on it in my stash. I don't have much red fabric - something to work on this year! - so I decided to use colors to add the peach imagery with this pink and peach fabric and the green print.

I'm sure you can find something in your stash - or local quilt shop - that makes you feel lucky and happy! Let's get to it.

Fabric choices for mug rug

materials

1 fat quarter for background fabric

8 fat quarters of gold fabric for monkey tail

2½" x 5" piece of green fabric

6½" x 8" cut of fabric for backing (or a leftover piece from a layer cake)

6½" x 8" piece of batting

Cut the fabrics

Background fabric pieces

From background fabric cut

2 - 2 x 3½" strips
6 - 2½" squares
1 - 2" square

Monkey Tail pieces

From gold (monkey tail) fabric cut

1 - 2 x 3½" strip
4 - 2½" squares
1 - 2" square

Green fabric pieces

From green fabric cut

2 - 2½" squares

Final fabric tips

You'll notice if you hover over each fabric photo that I include some tips about fabric choices. All of my chosen fabrics have prints - yours can too!

Notice how the prints are mostly medium in scale; a large print will get lost in the size of this project and may not look the way you hoped it would once it's cut. A non-directional print is important too - or at least a print that won't look *wrong* when you glance down to pick up your cup of tea :)

Of course there are always exceptions and personal preference when choosing fabrics. My green fabric is directional and I decided it's okay for it to be upside down sometimes - because it's not part of the main focus it won't bother me!

My monkey tail fabric has a small all-over print - it helps to give it some extra visual texture. You could also use a solid color for a dramatic visual impact.

Have fun with your background print! Maybe you have some novelty fabric scraps that need a place to shine!

Enjoy picking out your fabrics to make a Lucky Monkey Tail Mug Rug. In the next post we'll start sewing them together!

5 tips for organizing a new year of quilting

The thought of organizing one more thing may be overwhelming to you right now. You may not have made it back to your quilting space yet even though the end of the first month of 2016 is approaching. That's okay! Here are 5 tips for organizing a new year of quilting.

The tips I'm providing are useful any time you've been out of your regular quilting *groove* and are looking for a way back in. Try them and you and your machine will be humming again in no time :)

Use these 5 tips to get quilting in 2016

1. Clean up from holiday sewing

First things first - it's time to clean up the debris from holiday sewing! Whether it's still all over your cutting table or was chucked into a bin to deal with *later* - it's time to deal with it.

Cut down fabric strips left over from trimming a quilt into usable sizes for your stash.

I took the backing trimmed from a quilt that was a gift this year and cut the pieces into sizes that I use: I cut some 5" squares, some 3" and  2½" squares, a 3" and 2½" strip. Some have already been designated for projects - others will sit with my scraps and wait to be used.

Put other leftovers back where they came from and put your patterns/templates back in order too.

2. A Place for Everything

You probably received some new gadgets under the tree or shopped a few fabric sales and have new things to fit into your space. Take the time now to find/make homes for these items so they don't live on your cutting table or ironing board for the next month and slow down your making time.

Making room for the new things might involve getting rid of some different stuff that is no longer bringing you joy or useful to you. If you can't bear to just toss it, consider donating to local schools, guilds, day cares, after school groups, clubs or senior homes. Make kennel quilts. Sell it online.

Make space for what you want to focus on this year.

3. Replenish regular supplies

Having extra needles on hand will make it easier to change them when you need to and not wait until you have to!

I know it was just gift receiving time and that you got some stuff already. But - did you get a new rotary blade or new scissors? Some new neutral thread for piecing, batting, or new needles? Get what you need so you can start quilting this year with a clean space, proper supplies and a plan to enjoy it all.

4. Make a plan

Decide what you'll work on this year. Every year I sit down and update my UFO list - projects that are unfinished for one reason or another. This can be overwhelming and disheartening. Or it can be a fun, liberating challenge!

It's up to you - how do you want to feel while you're quilting this year? Stressed? Obligated? Confused? Rushed? OR Grateful! Challenged! Inspired! Relaxed.

Choose what you want to get done in the first few months of the year and then organize your space for those projects.

Keep fabrics for an ongoing project together in one bin

This year I'm in a birthday block exchange making a block each month for a different quilting friend. I have a bin with fabrics that I started to collect based on the different quilters' requests. I started a Pinterest board of Block Swap Ideas for inspiration as several quilters are letting us pick our own blocks to make!

Part of my first UFO of 2016 to complete - Halloween 1904 by Blackbird Designs

I also have a quilt for me that I keep putting off - not this year! It's my first UFO on the list to tackle this year and will make a wonderful birthday present in February ;)

5. Make time to quilt

Schedule your quilting time in. It doesn't have to be a lot of time, but you'll need to make it a regular habit if you want to see progress of any kind - even if that progress is a good night's sleep because you relaxed with quilting before bed.

Getting a project ready can take a larger chunk of time than you usually set aside - schedule time in one weekend and do all of the cutting. Or, realize it will take time and be satisfied with that - start cutting one fabric a night until you're ready to quilt.

My first leader and ender project of 2016

I usually sneak a second project in as a leader and ender - an extra something to put under the needle between piecing two units for the same project. Then, quilt each day for the time you have and watch your quilt grow!

This tip I'm still working on as I tend to make project goals not time goals: it's hard for me to stop in the middle of a step, but I know I feel better when I at least start a step instead of not doing any quilting at all!

Bonus Tip: Leave space for JOY!

The beginning of a new year is challenging as a quilter because so many new projects start! A new block of the month, a new guild challenge, a new pattern from a favorite designer gets released.

Leave some space in your quilting plans for 1 or 2 extra projects that you didn't anticipate. Don't deny yourself something new - but don't say yes to everything either!

I combined blocks from two different sew-alongs to make my own quilt.

I tend to try and combine new projects - take blocks from different ones to create my own project. This way I feel like I'm getting to do something new and I know I can actually finish it.

Share your organizing tip

Do you have a tip to share on how to get organized to start quilting? Please share in the comments!

Now that we're organized for a new quilting year, I wish you lots of inspiration and finished quilts in 2016!

Top 10 reasons why I love the Designer Jade | 35

This week on QUILTsocial flew by exploring the many capabilities of the Husqvarna Viking Designer Jade | 35. To wrap it up, I'd love to share my top 10 reasons why I love this sewing machine. Can you guess what any of them might be? Let's have a look.

Husqvarna Viking Designer Jade | 35

Number 10 - the slide out storage tray

This is such an amazing design feature. I love the fact that the storage tray securely holds the power cord and the foot pedal. In addition, there's room for a few sewing accessories. Slide that storage tray into the bed of the Jade | 35 and it doubles as the hard case. A brilliant and practical design.

Slide out storage tray

Number 9 - room to sew

There's enough room to the left and the front of the needle to be able to sew without adding an extension table. This from me who always sews with an extension table on my other sewing machines. Not once did I feel like my project was falling off the edges and I sewed some big projects on the Designer Jade | 35.

Plenty of room to the left and in front of the needle for sewing

Number 8 - Exclusive Sewing Advisor

Once you have access to this feature, you won't want to sew without it. This is especially true if you experiment with different types of fabrics and sewing techniques. Choose your fabric type/weight, choose the technique and let the Exclusive Sewing Advisor select the stitch and the appropriate settings like stitch length, presser foot, and tension among other settings.

Exclusive Sewing Advisor

Number 7 - 1/4" marking on the throat plate

If you've been following my reviews, you know that I LOVE that Quilter's 1/4" Piecing Foot. Combine that foot with the 1/4" marking on the throat plate and it's a perfect combination to sew that scant 1/4" seam.

1/4" marking on the throat plate

Number 6 - the needle threader

I'm a bit old school on this feature because I thread the needle without the needle threader - usually because I struggle with the darn things and my eye sight is still good enough. However I'm happy to report that this needle threader worked, first time, every time! Perhaps practise makes perfect? Anyway - I did use it a lot and it's very handy!

Needle threader

Number 5 - BEAUTIFUL stitches

The stitches on the Jade | 35 were so beautifully formed, it seemed a shame to put them on the inside of the project where they wouldn't be seen. But that is the point. Because the tension was perfect and the stitches so nicely formed, you could NOT see them from the right side and in quilting, that's very important.

One thing to note, I like to use a stitch length of 2.0. On most machines, I have to drop the stitch length down to 2.0, but the default on the Jade | 35 is 2.0. Nice!

Beautiful stitches

Number 4 - great functions!

OK - I'm cheating a bit because I'm combining a few things together! The Jade | 35 has a needle down function. If you're going to do applique, chain piecing, free motion quilting and many other tasks - needle down is critical!

The STOP function is essential for machine applique to end the stitching at the end of a stitch sequence among other tasks.

The FIX function ties a knot at the beginning and end of your row of stitching. Again - this is a fabulous feature for applique and decorative stitching.

When people ask me what I look for in a sewing machine - the first thing I say is 'what functions does it have for applique?' This is very important even if you do just a small amount of applique. If you have the right tools, it makes the job so much easier and the results look nicer.

Ah - you noticed that I didn't mention the scissors! They're handy, but again, the old school in me just doesn't use them. However that feature is handy for the embroidery part where the thread is cut automatically after you finished a thread color or the embroidery is completely stitched.

Needle stop up/down, STOP, FIX and Scissors function buttons

Number 3 - great variety of stitches

While it's nice to have lots and lots of different stitches, sometimes it can be overwhelming. The number of stitches on the Jade | 35 is just right. There's enough variety within each of the four menus that you'll be busy exploring for a very long time.

Stitch Menus 1 and 3

Stitch Menus 2 and 4

Number 2 - flexibility to modify stitches

The flexibility to modify stitches is amazing. You can change the width and the length. You can also mirror the stitches from end to end or side to side. That flexibility just increased (by a lot), the number of options for the stitches.

Stitches mirrored side to side

Stitch width has been modified

Number 1 - embroidery capabilities

As an entry level embroidery machine, the Designer Jade | 35 certainly provides a lot of options and a lot of flexibility in what you can embroider. Let's just say that I was very pleasantly surprised by what it can do.

Husqvarna Viking Designer Jade | 35 with embroidery unit

And there you have it - the top 10 reasons why I love the Husqvarna Viking Designer Jade | 35. There were a lot of surprises on this entry level embroidery machine and it was a very pleasant experience to sew and embroidery on the Jade | 35.

Who should buy this machine? If I were looking for a great (full feature) sewing machine, and also wanted to dabble in machine embroidery - this is an excellent (and well priced) sewing/embroidery machine. No need for an embroidery machine with all the bells and whistles if you'll only be doing the occasional embroidery project. You get good functionality on the Jade | 35 and it sews a fabulous stitch for your quilting/sewing projects.

That was a very fun week. I hope you enjoyed it and I hope you learned a tip or two in the process of reviewing it. Don't forget to let us know how you love your Jade | 35 and post pictures of any projects that you're working on on our Facebook page: QUILTsocial .

Have a great day! Ciao!

Modern crazy patch project

Wasn't yesterday's machine embroidery impressive on the Husqvarna Viking Designer Jade | 35?

Today we're going to combine the applique tips, the embroidery and some decorative stitching into an updated, dare I say, modern version of crazy patch.

Once you complete your "new" fabric, you can use it to make a tote bag, a journal cover, a pillow. Click the links to find a tutorial for each item.

Husqvarna Viking Designer Jade | 35

My inspiration was a piece of a crazy patch quilt that I own. This was all hand done and the pieces are on the small side. I decided to make the pieces larger (yes - it's faster!) and do all the work on the Designer Jade | 35.

Tradtional crazy patch quilt

Choose some fabrics

I decided to let the stitching and embroidery shine through by using solid fabric. I choose solids from Northcott's Colorworks Premium Solid collection.

Northcott ColorWorks Premium Solids in shades of red

Northcott ColorWorks Premium Solids in shades of yellow

Use a foundation fabric

There are many ways to make this type of project. I could have cut pieces out and sewed them together with no foundation. I could have overlapped them and appliqued them. Instead, I chose the stitch 'n' flip method which I'll briefly outline below.

I started by cutting a piece of muslin a couple of inches larger than I actually need. I believe my foundation is 17" square. I want to make this easy and not have too many seams, so I'm minimizing the number of seams involved.

I drew a line diagonally on the muslin.

Guidelines drawn on the muslin foundation

Sewing the fabric pieces to the muslin foundation

Then I took my first piece of fabric and laid it on the muslin base so that it covered at least one section. 

First fabric placed on the muslin foundation

Notice I didn't cut anything down to size - I just used FQs of the fabrics and trimmed them off once they were sewn together.

Then I took the next piece of fabric and laid them right sides together (although you can't tell when using solids). Notice that there's overlap. I'm going to sew a 1/4" seam along that long edge of the darker red. I'll trim away the lighter red that is visible and then flip the darker red over so it covers the next area.

Let's walk through it step by step.

Place the next piece of fabric right sides together

Pin in place

Sew 1/4" away from the edge of the top piece

When I flip that darker red over the seam, I now have two pieces stitched to the muslin foundation. 

Two sections of the crazy patch sewn together

Now there's a lot of extra (bright red) fabric underneath the darker fabric so I'm going to trim that away.

I used scissors to trim that excess being careful to not cut the foundation square. Note this picture was taken after the third (pink) fabric was stitched in place over the darker red.

Trimming away the excess with scissors

There's also excess fabric hanging over the edge of the muslin foundation. I used my rotary cutter to trim that away. I left a bit extra over the edge of the muslin and once the entire piece is completed, those edges will all be trimmed up.

Trimming along the edge of the musling foundation with the rotary cutter

I continued in this way working first to one side of my initial piece and then to the other side. Alternatively, you started on one side and worked to the other. Be sure to cover that muslin base entirely. You can see that I shortened that coral colored piece and that entire side will have to be trimmed a bit shorter because of that.

One half of the muslin foundation is covered with fabric

Audition the fabrics for the other side. Since this is stitch and flip, I'm going to change the direction of the pieces to make it easy. Again - there are many ways to do this, I could have joined multiple pieces together before I stitched and flipped, but I wanted to keep this simple.

Auditioning fabrics for the second half

Now it's time to start the process for the second half. I've laid out the first piece of yellow so that the seam will cover the ends of all the red pieces. Then I'll stitch and flip to cover this entire half.

Ready to stitch and flip on the second half

Decorative stitching

Now we can have some fun with the decorative stitching.

I chose thread colors that somewhat matched my fabrics. I used a pre-wound bobbin and on top, I used rayon threads. They have a bit of shine to them, come in loads of different colors and are easy to use.

Then I browsed the stitch menus and using the techniques from earlier this week, I started the decorative stitches.

Since my pieces are fairly large, I didn't feel that one row of decorative stitching would be enough, so I started with one line of stitching directly on the seam and then stitched a second and third row on either side.

First row of decorative stitching

Using the presser foot as a guide, I added a second row of stitching to the right of the first one and then I added a matching row of stitching to the left of that first row.

Stitching on the right hand side of the first row of stitching

Stitching on the left hand side of that first row

Finished decorative stitching for this seam

YES - that's the same piece of fabric. The lighting can change the coloring a lot. Which goes to show that we need to be careful when choosing fabrics - can't say enough about having good light for that task.

Time to add some machine embroidery

I decided to add some embroidery from the USB embroidery stick that came with the Designer Jade | 35. I stitched one of the designs right on the piece and I also used the embroidery font to stitch my initials on the piece which is part of the tradition of crazy patch.

There wasn't enough fabric to properly hoop my project as this image is close to the edge. I simply basted an extra piece of fabric to the side, stitched out the design and removed the extra piece of fabric. The chalk lines are my placement marks when I hooped only because I wanted this design in a specific place on the fabric.

The hoop comes with centering marks engraved along the sides so it's easy to match up your reference lines with the engraved marks in the hoop.

Embroidery design stitched directly onto the background fabric

For the next embroidery design, I also had to baste some extra fabric to the edge of the project as the placement of the font was too close to the edge to hoop properly. There are other ways of hooping the fabric without doing that, but that worked for me in a hurry with the supplies I had on hand.

Embroidered initials

Some of my fabric shapes are rather large. To fill some of the spaces, I stitched yet another embroidery design from the USB embroidery stick. This time I stitched the embroidery on another piece of fabric. Then I cut the embroidery out and appliqued it to my project. I used a zig zag stitch with very thin thread to do the applique.

Applique created from an embroidery design

This is a good piece to practice on. You get to try the decorative stitches, you get to play with the various embroidery designs and embroidery font and even try out applique.

Once I'm finished with the stitching, I'll be trimming the piece down. I haven't decided which of my three projects I'll make with it. I may even decide to keep it as a small wall hanging.

Modern crazy patch (work in progress)

This small work in progress is just the tip of the iceberg of the things that you can do with the Husqvarna Viking Designer Jade | 35. The only limitation will be your imagination. 

I'd love to see what fun project you end up making.

Tomorrow we wrap up this series with the Top 10 reasons why I love the Husqvarna Viking Designer Jade | 35. Have a great day! Ciao!