Dresden Candle Mat Mug Rug Gifts

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There has been a whole lot of Dresden going on this week. I saw a cute stack of Dresden mug rugs on Pinterest and decided that I wanted to make some for gifts.

I had part of a Moda Jelly Roll left from another project. It is the HoHoHo collection by Deb Strain.


EZ International Easy Dresden Tool
The Easy Dresden ruler makes the job of cutting Dresdens super easy. If you are interested in purchasing your own Easy Dresden Ruler, clicking the picture and link above will take you directly to the Craftsy site. I highly recommend this tool.

As I was making them, I thought of more and more people that I wanted to give something to. I decided that I would make as many dresdens as I had fabric. When sewing them to form the points, I chain pieced them. I was a bit overwhelmed by the size of the pile when I was finished. Cutting them apart was a bit awkward until I figured out that I could lay them in rows on my ironing board and go down the line with my scissors, snipping them apart.

At first, I organized them four at a time. It takes twenty wedges to make one Dresden block. They look pretty all lined up in a row.

Here are the first four. Once I got this far, I knew I would finish them all.

After the first four, I sorted all the wedges by color and made them one at a time.

It is amazing how different each one looks. Once all the wedges were sewn, there were 25 Dresdens.

To finish them, there is a felt circle covering the open hole and another piece of felt behind the Dresden as background. The circle is stitched down as well as the points around the Dresden.

I was hoping to show you a finished stack of 25 Dresden mug rugs, but I didn't quite get finished. The ones on the front right just need to be trimmed and I will get to that today. While most of them have a red center and background, there are a few greens, and even one black in there. It was all about the supplies I had on hand.

Looking forward to finishing these in the next couple of days and gifting them next week to some very deserving people. I wish I could have made a hundred. Hope your holiday sewing is just as much fun as mine is.

Purchase your own EZ Dresden Tool here:


EZ International Easy Dresden Tool Linking up with Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times and Monday Making at Love Life Quilt. Also linking up with Fabric Tuesday at Quilt Story.