Today I’m joining in on another sew along hosted by Kerry Goulder of Kid Giddy and her twin sister Sue of Moss and Lotus. The Mug Club Sew Along is a year long event hosted on Instagram in which participants sew up any one of the 12+ mug paper pieced patterns in the Mug Club and share on social media. Check the hashtags #TheMugClub or #TheMugClubSAL to see the most eclectic and amazing collection of fabric mugs you’ve ever seen.
There’s something particularly inviting about these mug patterns, since anything can go on a mug. A person’s collection of coffee mugs can tell you so much about them–places they’ve gone, their sense of humor, their family (do they have a “I love Grandma” mug? Most likely, they have doting grandchildren!) Maybe it’s just me who reads into coffee mugs, but either way, I feel like these patterns allow SO much room for creativity, expression, and sometimes just straight quirkiness (always a good thing!).
As soon as Kerry asked me to play along, I knew exactly what fabric I was going to use. A few years ago, while stopping in at Clementine Fabrics in Rockland, Maine, after a family day at the beach, I spotted this amazing Alexander Henry fabric with a geometric sketched ocean, sailing ships, anchors, a buxom mermaid figurehead, and (the part that caught my attention) a large face that looks exactly like my brother. The fabric is called Lost at Sea and although my brother is not a salty sailor, it was one of those fabrics that I knew I had to buy even though I had no idea what to make with it, since the face looked so uncannily like Steven. As a little backstory, my brother is an extremely talented artist who spent much of his high school years painting portraits, nearly always using his own reflection as his reference. He already has countless creations sporting his likeness, so what’s one more to the pile, right?
I used the 10″ Paper Love Mug since it was *just* large enough to fit the full face, and simple enough not to seem busy with the wavy background. Whether my brother will love the mug rug I make with this mug block or just get a good hearty laugh over it, I don’t care. It’s just one of those gifts that must be given.
I visited my local quilt shop Fiddlehead Artisan Supply and got some perfect Robert Kaufman Essex Linen in Navy as the background, and used stashed Kona Navy Blue as the handle. I stitched the block with Aurifil 50wt 2600-Dove, but plan to use a dark navy for quilting. I’m still trying to decide whether to quilt the face, or whether I should leave it as is. I might *try* to stitch some hand quilting with 50wt dark navy thread so that I’m sure to get it exactly on the drawn lines.
I also might add some embroidered detail to that anchor tattoo. We’ll see how brave I get. That’s the one thing with using my brother’s Doppelganger fabric–I daren’t mess up the face! Either way, I think he’ll get a kick out of the gift, and I have finally found a way to gift a piece of this stashed fabric to him!
The Paper Love Mug (top center) is part of the Mug Club Part 1, designed by Kerry at Kid Giddy.
The Mug Club Part 2 has another fun selection of 6 mugs, designed by Sue of Moss and Lotus. Aren’t they all so fun! Do you see your favorite mug? If you don’t follow Kerry and Sue yet, I recommend it–they are always having some creative sisterly fun together!
Go ahead and have some fun perusing some of the other mugs at #TheMugClub or #TheMugClubSAL since there is SUCH a fun variety.
What would you put on your mug?
The block finishes at 6″ square, so my initial thought was to shrink it down to a 3″ square and make an ornament. I love making functional items, and you know how I love to sew teeny tiny ridiculously small things! But then when I sorted through my stash and decided upon the Tula Pink Prince Charming print as the sweater body, I decided the scale would look better with the 6″ size. Now we are going to have a festive mug rug/coaster, which I plan to have out for all of sweater season, which is nice and long here in Maine!
I love the subtle Cotton + Steel Mustang twinkle trim on the sweater, and the Kona Wasabi arms round it out nicely.
Hindsight, I should have made the shoulder bits with the greeny-yellow part of the Tula print instead of the blue, since they kind of disappear into the background, but c’est la vie. My husband says he likes it this way, so all is well.
I plan to do some simple diagonal crosshatch quilting with the walking foot on my Bernina 560, but haven’t yet decided whether to use 
I’ll be sure to share this block in action once I quilt it up and plop some delicious treats or a warm mug of something sweet on top! I borrowed some of the tiny glittery ornaments from the tiny tree my son cut for our kitchen island for my block photo shoot and now there’s glitter EVERYwhere! I hope your holiday season has been glittery and bright so far, too!
Night Quilter 