Starbucks Mug Rug Swap

This month I participated in my first sewing swap! I’ve seen these mentioned many times before but hadn’t jumped into one until now, and it was so much fun. I will definitely be doing more swaps in the future. This was a Starbucks Mug Rug Swap with two required items — a Starbucks “You Are Here” mug and a mug rug to go with it. (I also threw in three fat quarters and a $5 Starbucks card as extras.)

I spend a ridiculously long time trying to decide what to make, and finally decided to go with this paper-pieced gemstone pattern that I’ve had for over a year, just waiting for a good opportunity to use it.

The pattern makes a big 20″ diameter circle. I thought about reducing the size, but decided it might be cool to just make 1/4 of the circle — in other words, a 10″x10″ square. That’s still slightly large for a mug rug, but I decided to just go with it. I had several different shades of pink/purple/red in my scrap stash and used leftover lightweight denim (from my poolside tote) as the background and binding. I love how it turned out!

I wasn’t exactly sure how to quilt it, so I started off with a long curved line along the border of the gemstone. Once I saw that, I decided to echo that shape over the rest of the mug rug. It got a little wonky down toward the bottom corner, but overall I really liked it. I’ve never done anything but straight line quilting, so curves were fun to play with.

On the back, I randomly pieced together a few more scraps to make a stripe. I also wrote my name and the date — I wouldn’t have thought to do this, but the person who sent me my package had labeled hers and I realized that was a great idea! I have not consistently labeled my quilts in the past, and I really need to start.

I put this in the mail on Saturday so my partner should receive it tomorrow. Hope she likes it!