cactus mug rug tutorial

Hi there! My mug rug with cactus applique is ready! Although it is a small project and takes little time to finish, it has the same steps as big quilt. If you are new in quilting and want to start from somewhere, this little quilt may give you some inspiration. Or you just want to make something in a short time. Mug rugs are also great as gifts.
Now I'll tell how to make a mug rug. I hope it will be helpful for you. If anything missing or not clear about the instructions, please let me know, so that I can fix it. Here we go!

Instructions

The first thing to do is to prepare the top quilt. For this mug rug I preferred cactus applique pattern. For PDF with various cacti patterns, click below.

CACTUS PATTERN IN PDF

Choose one of the cacti and prepare it for applique with english paper piecing. Below is the cactus I chose. After pressing with iron, remove the papers inside and it is ready for appliquing.

Cut a piece of fabric measuring 8"x8". Mug rugs differs in size. This is the measure I used. Place the cactus to the center of the fabric, pin and baste it and then you can start appliquing it.

When the top is ready, you should now sandwich it. Backing, batting and the quilt top are put and pinned together. I take the three layers at the same size. If you need some more detailed information about how to make a quilt sandwich, click HERE for another post of me that gives detailed information about quilt sandwich.

the quilting as you like, either by hand or machine. I prefer hand quilting, though. I quilted on the cactus in order to make it more alike as a cactus. I liked it in the end. I also quilted around and on the pot and added a little sun on the right corner of the background fabric.

After quilting, trim the edges. For binding, cut 2,5" wide stripe. Fold it double, as in the photo and iron it.

Start pinning the binding to the wrong side of the quilt. When you come to the corner, turn the binding up as you can see in the photo. Then turn it back down, continue pinning around the quilt. Start sewing from the corners until the next corner. Sew every side of it seperately.

Press the seams with iron. Turn the binding to the right side and pin the binding to the right side. Sew all around the quilt by machine. To me, the most difficult part of the binding is making corners, but by this way of binding, you'll have proper corners.

And your mini quilt is ready! Enjoy the process and please let me know if you have any questions. I know that it is not perfect but it is unique as I made it.

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cactus applique cactus quilt mug rug tutorial

Hatun Çomak

I'm Hatun from Turkiye. I love quilting and patchwork and this is my patchworld. I share my projects, process, patterns and tutorials here in my blog. .

Website: https://www.mypatchworld.com/