Purple Fancy - Mug Rug #29

Hey Everyone, welcome back to Mug Rug Monday.

As a kid my grandmother always had pansies growing in her flower garden by the kitchen. When we pulled up in the driveway we were greeted by this flowerbed of colour and cheer. Pansies are one of my favourite flowers because they are so colourful and they remind me of a wonderful woman I called Grandma.

Here’s my pansy mug rug.

Making the Template

I had a few pictures of pansies and used one of them as the template for this mug rug.

Flower for template

To begin I printed it off in greyscale making it easier to see the outline of the petals and sections of the flower.

Greyscale image of pansy

Then I traced the outline onto paper and created the appliqué pieces.

Outline of pansy for template

Picking the Fabrics

I love purple pansies so I picked out some purple fabrics to create the mug rug.

Fabric choices

Once I had the pansy made I put it on the light purple background I had chose but wasn’t so sure I liked it.

Pansy on purple background

Then I thought why not use blue as the background to represent the sky.

Pansy on blue background

Quilting the Background

I drew out the gridlines using the Frixion pen for a checkerboard quilting motif. I did do a test with the pen on the fabric to make sure it came off with heat – especially important to do on lighter fabrics.

Frixion pen on background with gridlines drawn

Gridlines drawn for quilting

Using a blue variegated thread I quilted the straight lines with the walking foot and then ironed the piece to remove the gridlines.

Checkerboard quilting

Quilting the background first means that the flower won’t puff up off the fabric but rather lie nice and flat.

Stitching the Flower

I have had some hand dyed threads in my cupboard for a very long time and haven’t really used them. I am not sure what I am saving them for so decided it was high time to use them.

Hand dyed threads for stitching around flower shape

Thread choices

A friend of mine once had a bottle of ice wine she was saving for a special occasion. Finally when that special occasion came she opened the bottle of wine and it had fermented. So the moral of the story is don’t keep things for a special occasion – use them now and enjoy them.

I am using the hand dyed threads to do free motion zigzag around the flower pieces. They look great!