Mug Rugs

Mug Rugs, a photo by saucypotato on Flickr.

As a novice yet determined sewer, I figured the best way to work up to making a full quilt would be to start small, and by small I mean 'mug rugs'. What is a mug rug? Well, it's basically a big coaster made of quilting scraps, large enough for your mug as well as a treat on the side. They make for a fun little project, and are fairly easy to put together.

There are endless online tutorials from far more experienced quilters on how to make a mug rug, so I won't run through the process, but I've shown the patterns and dimensions after the jump.

All of these mug rugs measure 6x9", but can be scaled up or down to any size. Each one is made of cotton quilting fabric, with the same black, grey and white fabrics as a base.

The back pieces and borders were cut as single 8x11" pieces, and placed on center of the top piece and batting. After the top piece, batting, and back piece were quilted together with the top stitch, the excess fabric around the edge from the back piece was folded over to make the border. The corners were folded under into an angle, or 'faux' mitered corner.

The measurements below don't include the back piece, or an additional 1/4" around each piece for sewing, and are just the measurements of each finished rug.

Blue Rug

Black: (3)1x6", (2)1x4"
Grey: (4)1x1"
White: (4)1x3"
Blue: (4)1x3"

Pink Rug

Black: (1)1x6", (1)1x3"
Grey: (2)1x6"
White: (1)3x1.5", (2)6x1.25"
Pink: (1)3x3"

Green Rug

Black: (1)1.5x1.5"
Grey: (2)6x1.5"
White: (2)6x1.5", (2)1.5x1.5"
Green: (4)1.5x1.5"


One of the things I learned while making these was to be more mindful of where to place the top stitch, as it can really either enhance or hide the pattern.