Fall Mug Rugs

I'm a member of the Molly Pitcher's Stitchers guild in my town, and during the course of the year we sign up to bring in door prizes for the monthly meetings. Door prizes can be fabric, sewing tools or accessories, or handmade items. I decided to make fall themed mug rugs for my door prize.

My mother has a Anita Goodesign membership and there is a pretty fall set in the current collection. The design pack is called "Autumn 1, 2, 3." You can check out the collection here: https://www.anitagoodesignonline.com/product/autumn-123/

Anita Goodesign's 1, 2, 3 collections are amazing embroidery tools. You can mix and match borders (some with embroidery on them!), embroidery designs, and stippling or background stitches from a fairly large collection of options.

Here are some close-ups of the designs I chose to use.

I don't like the coloring of the bird's face. If I were to stitch this one again, I'd alter it somewhat to make the features stand out better.

This one is my favorite.

Here's the process:

1. I stitched all the designs on a piece of fabric.

2. I decided how big I wanted the mug rugs to come out. 

When they were completed, they were about 5x7.

3. I cut them all to the same(ish) size.

4. I found a coordinating backing fabric, and cut pieces to match. 

5. I sandwiched it with some batting inside.

6. I made binding, and machine binded it like a quilt. I used a leaf pattern decorative stitch and brown variegated thread to bind the front. 

Things that I didn't do that I should have:

Binding things that are small is difficult and annoying. If I made these again, I would have cut the back pieces of fabric larger than the front and used a wrap around binding method to finish them.

All in all, I'm happy with how these came out and would probably make them again as a quick gift.