Whimsical Woodland Mug rug Swap

I know what you’re thinking…. what is a mug rug? It’s an oversized quilted coaster, with enough room to rest your beverage of choice, and a little (or big) snack. It’s just another excuse to fill your house with patchwork, that I do know. Throw in some whimsical woodland – think squirrels, deer, hedgehogs and OWLS!! I’m all over it!

My fabulous assigned partner, Michelle, loves the same sort of colours as I do namely blues and greens, although isn’t a fan of owls. Oh well, squirrels it is then!

Full credit to the Pineapple template that I found at Katie’s Quilting Corner, although I didn’t follow her numbering system, and ended up using one piece to cover the last 3 corner pieces. Repeat times 4, and you have an adorable 7 1/2″ square piece of patchwork!

Not quite obvious here is my very first mitred border – the light green border that I used to extend the patchwork a little bit. And I do love the background fabric, using up what was left of the fat quarter I fussy cut the animal faces from.

I did remember to pop one of my name labels in the back seam, and I wrote the swap details on the back of the binding for Michelle, there just wasn’t enough space for a label!

My favourite part of this mini patchwork though was the quilting. I created some dense diamond texture on the border, filling it with pebbles and corner pieces of matchstick quilting. The centre panel over the pineapple blocks was quilted using a woodgrain texture effect. I thought rather humorously appropriate for a Whimsical Woodland swap!

As the swap was limited to themed items, handmade or under $10, I had so much fun getting creative with the extras that I included….

The tiny hedgehog zipper pouch is fully lined with concealed seams, and attached to a split key ring. So useful for just a couple of cards or some lipbalm. Free tutorial and pattern from So Sew Easy on Craftsy, although apparently I missed entirely the step for boxing the corners. It still turned out really awesome.

The woodland/deer ribbon came from eBay, and I used some cotton “heading tape” and key fob hardware to turn it into a fashionable key chain. Angie at Gnomeangel has a good tutorial for this. I bought a large pack of the hardware, so expect to see some more of these guys in various guises.

I added in some other finds, a bag tag, stickers and a pen, and I think some chocolates might have found their way into the parcel also. You can’t have a good swap without chocolate! Finally, I cross-stitched this cute little squirrel hoop for her to hang up. Really simple and effective pattern from Happinesst on Etsy.

Tell me, what is your favourite woodland animal? One that I included above? Or something else entirely? Come back on Friday to see the adorable things I got in my parcel!

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