Hey Everyone, welcome back to Mug Rug Monday on Colourful Friday.

I’m playing catch up with my weekly mug rug posts. This is last week’s post – mug rug #24. Only 2 more to go and I am half way through my challenge. Woohoo!

The other day when I was working on my Stitch Along Sunday piece I had an idea for a mug rug to represent the summer solstice and what better way to represent it than with a sun. The longest day of the year with the most amount of daylight. I am always sad though when the longest day of the year arrives and I know it is on a slow decline to less and less daylight.

I created an image in a program on my computer that had different shapes I could group together to make the image I wanted to represent the sun.

Sun image

I initially picked a green fabric for the centre of the sun but then when I had it all layered together I didn’t really like it and changed the centre fabric to an orange hue.

Original fabric selection

I’ve used a complementary colour scheme of blue and orange to create this little mug rug. My favourite colour combo I might add.

After drawing out my pieces on fusible web I fused them to the fabric and picked some threads for the stitching from Robison-Anton. These threads are made from a shiny rayon so will stand out.

Thread selection

I stitched the pieces down with a free motion satin stitch. Initially I had picked threads that almost blended in with the fabrics and then changed my mind to have ones that were darker and would contrast nicely with the fabrics creating a nice crisp edge around each shape.

Stitching and quilting done

Adding some stippling with a blue thread resulted in the thread blending in nicely with the background fabric and filling in the negative space.

With the binding added Summer Solstice is complete. This little mug rug is a bit bigger than my usual square ones and measures in at 9 ¼″ square.

Summer Solstice mug rug

Enjoy the sunshine and long days of summer.

Happy Quilting!