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.

Six Ideas For Fast Handmade Gifts - Let the Holiday Countdown Begin

Can you believe there are only 43 days until Christmas? And if you celebrate Hanukkah, well that starts in a mere 23 days. Yikes! I am the world's worst at waiting until about this time to decide that it is time to get started on all those handmade gifts. I have to admit I sort of thrive on the chaos of a busy making season.

If you are in need of some gift making suggestions, here are a few ideas and tutorials.

ORNAMENTS

Ornaments are often a fast gift when you want to make something for a group, like teachers or coworkers. And why stop at bells? It is so easy to search out other shapes like trees, stockings, or stars that would also be fast and easy strip pieced ornaments.

What I love most about these is that if you make a plain back for them, you can add a personalized message. Learn more about making these strip pieced bell ornaments here.

DOOR HANGERS

You can upsize any ornament to make it a door hanger. Again, a plain back leaves room for you to further personalize an already special gift. Here is a tutorial for making this bell door hanger.

MUG RUGS

I love mug rugs. Bigger than a coaster. Smaller than a quilt. You can use orphan quilt blocks or bust into your scraps. It's hard to go wrong with a mug rug. I usually gift these along with a few cookies or a small snack. They can be made with a holiday theme or in fabrics that can be used year round. Check out this tutorial for a dresden mug rug.

If you like to quilt more than piece, this initial mug rug may be more your style. Here is a tutorial for making an initial mug rug.

BANNERS AND BUNTINGS

Banners and buntings are great to add some decorative flair to any room. They are easy to enhance with extras and can be themed or not. Here is a link to how this one was made.

COASTERS

I like to think of coasters as tiny quilts. There are a million ways to make coasters, and they are another great way to use up orphan blocks and scraps. While this picture has a Valentine's theme, they can be made in any fabric. These are made from leftover charm squares. Learn how to make these here.


SMALL QUILTS

Now, before you roll your eyes over how not quick a quilt is, keep in mind it doesn't have to be a big quilt. It could be a very small quilt, so small that it becomes a table topper, or mini quilt, or wall hanging. For example, in the quilt above, if I just made three columns of blocks, and shortened it a bit, wouldn't that make a cool table runner?

When you are looking for ideas, try to dissect the bigger projects a bit to see if something small, fast, and beautiful can be made from them. Go here to see how this quilt was made.

This blue plus quilt was also a fast one to make. Learn about it here.

This list is only a small sampling of fast handmade projects to get you started. Do some quick searching and you will find thousands of ideas for handmade gifts. What fast handmade projects have you made?

Holiday Initial Mug Rug Tutorial

It's time to start thinking about quick holiday gifts. This initial mug rug is fast and very easy to make. It isn't apparent from this picture but it is an "initial" mug rug because there is an initial quilted into the large square.

The parts you need to make the front are one 6 1/2 inch square, one 2 1/2 inch x 6 1/2 inch rectangle, and one 1 1/2 inch x 6 1/2 inch rectangle.

Before sewing them together, you need to draw your initial on the 6 1/2 inch square. To find a letter I wanted to use, I opened up my word processing software and started looking through the available fonts. It is important to use something fairly simple so that the letter does not get lost in the quilting.

The font I chose is "Georgia". It is a common serif font and usually available on most word processors. I suppose I should have printed the page and taped it to a window to be able to see it. Since I was making this after dark, I did the next best thing and traced it straight off the computer screen.

Yes, I used tape and taped it directly to the screen. A blue, water soluble marker did the trick for the tracing.

Next, stitch the three pieces together to form the top using a 1/4 inch seam. Cut batting and backing at least 7 inches by 10 inches. Layer the top with batting and backing and quilt in any way you desire. To make the letter stand out, use dense quilting to fill the background. I used a small meander stitch in matching thread and I also stitched directly on the lines that form the letter. In the small red rectangle on the right, I free motion stitched a back and forth horizontal(ish) line. I switched to my walking foot for the light accent fabric and stitched vertical lines about 3/8 inch apart.

Here it is from the back. There were a few tension issues, but not horrible.

If you wanted to skip the initial in this project, you could easily choose three pretty prints and do some simple all over quilting. I am hoping to make quite a few of these to use as gifts for my office mates. The initial personalizes it and makes it special just for them.

I wasn't sure if I wanted traditional binding or if I wanted to do a sew and turn method for this project. I'm glad I went with binding. I like the way it frames up the project.

There are so many variations that can be made with this project. For the light accent fabric, you could stitch together some smaller scraps to make an improv stripe. You could choose to quilt in a motif instead of an initial, like a snowflake or holly leaves. If we push past Christmas, wouldn't this be cute in Valentine's Day fabric with a heart quilted in the big square. The possibilities are endless.

 

Linking up with Whoop Whoop at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Fabric Frenzy Friday at Fort Worth Fabric Studio, and Finish It Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts. Also linking up with Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times.

Other posts that feature gift ideas:

Mother's Day Gift Making - Improv Pot Holders

Two Projects Finished Just In Time

Teacher Gifts - Personalized Bell Ornaments