Halloween Two Pumpkins Mug Rug Tutorial

Are you looking for a fast and easy quilt project for Halloween? The Two Pumpkins mug rug would make a great gift for a teacher, a friend or just for yourself. I have included the little pumpkin appliques for you.

I have had many of you tell me that you would like to get better at free motion quilting or applique and I always, always say that you should try some small quilt projects like mug rugs!

Mug rugs are the perfect quilt project for practicing.

Halloween Two Pumpkins Mug Rug
6″ x 8″

Supplies

• Scraps of orange, black and brown batiks or quilt fabrics
• 7″ x 9″ cream batik or neutral quilt fabric for the background
• 7″ x 10″ batting
• 7″ x 10″ backing fabric
• Heat n Bond Lite
• Binding – 2½” x width of fabric
• Black and cream Aurifil thread for stitching

The first thing I did was go to my bins of Island Batik fabrics and choose some fun batiks for Halloween. I really like storing my batiks in these open weave baskets as it is easy to see what I have. This is the Algot system from IKEA, it is no longer available.

Trace the pumpkins onto Heat n Bond Lite. I like to cut the center out from the pumpkins and then use them for the face pieces.

You can iron the face pieces on right away if you like.

Fabric markers are a great way to add little details to applique.  I cut the background fabric a little over sized, about 7″ x 9″.

I used a brown marker at first but then decided to stitch over it with black thread.

It is always a good idea to place some type of stabilizer behind your applique before stitching. I am using a page from an old telephone book. I am using my old vintage 15-91 Singer sewing machine with the feed dogs dropped and a darning foot to do my free motion quilting.

This is the backside of the applique done on the phone book paper.

Remove the paper, it usually is very easy to do using your fingernail to tear it.

Next, you’ll need a small piece of batting, I have a drawer that I use to store leftover pieces. Little Sadie was taking a nap while I quilted.

Cut a backing piece and your batting slightly bigger than the mug rug top.

Quilt the little Halloween two pumpkin mug rug.

Once the piece is quilted, trim it to size. I made this one 6″ x 8″.

Cut a piece of fabric for the binding 2½” by the width of the fabric. Fold in half and attach to the front of the mug rug.

Once the binding is sewn down, press it to the back. Use little clips to hold it in place and then top-stitch.

This could also be used as a mini wall hanging. I pulled out some cute green buttons that would really be fun to use on this.

See how small it is compared to the Pumpkin table runner that I made last week.

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