Sunday, August 26, 2012

First UFO Sunday

So Sundays are now UFO Day at the Free Motion Quilting Project blog.  Check it out!

In the spirit of finishing our UFOs, I pulled out one that I'd been putting off for a long time.

A mug rug.

The shame of it!  Who couldn't finish a little mug rug?  Seriously, how did I avoid finishing it for months?

Here's what happened.  My sister and I had this idea that we could put together a craft show booth.  My sister would sell jewelry, and I'd sell sewn items.  So I started sewing together a mug rug out of my less-than-favorite fabrics to sell it.  However, I ran into two problems:

1.  It's not fun making something to sell, especially if you're anticipating that it will be one in a long line of things to sell.  For me, it just takes the joy out of it.

2.  It's not fun working with fabrics that you aren't in love with.

So I scrapped the idea of doing a craft show booth and my half-finished mug rug just...sat.  It was all pieced and quilted, it just needed to be bound.  It sat in my sewing area, bugging me.  But when I heard about this project I figured it would be a good reason to finish it.

Today I finished putting the binding on my mug rug. 

Ta-da!  I'm happy I finished it.  I'm going back to work this week and it'll be nice to have on my desk.  I don't drink coffee, so I'll put my Coke Zero on it.  And, this mug rug was pieced and quilted on my Singer 66 (which is powered by a hand crank), and bound by hand (ugh...another reason to put this project off...I hate hand binding!).

One UFO down, many to go...

Check out everyone's UFOs!


UFO Sundays on the Free Motion Quilting Project

7 comments:

  1. Ha-ha-ha! The first thing I put on my list was Mug Rugs as well, then I took them off because I was embarrassed to admit it. I'm going to put them back on now - thanks for sharing!

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  2. I thought about the craft fair route and tried one in May. Looking back it was four days of "I will never do this again." I think you made a great decision. I never thought about rug mugs before, I need to make some with leftovers from other quilts.

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  3. People tell me constantly I should sell things. Most then tell me the huge sums of money I could make (which will barely cover supplies...) It just takes the fun out of it.

    But I LOVE your mug rug!

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  4. Christine, I feel the same way about selling things I make. It is just not fun for me. Congrats on finishing something that your were not crazy about. I think the fabric is really very nice.
    Emma

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  5. Using Pinterest is a great idea. I have played around with it a little bit, but haven't really learned how to use it effectively. By the way, your machine is beautiful. I love old singers. I use a Featherweight all the time, especially for FMQ.

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  6. I agree with Jessim. Unless I can sell a quilt for no less than $1000, I'm not interested in selling. I am continually telling people, "NO, I don't take orders:)" I would rather work on what I want, not what they want.

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  7. Lol! I feel kind of out of sync to not even know what a "mug rug" is! Coaster, right?!

    I'm with you on making things to sell. My feeling is, if I can stitch something together in 5 minutes, then yes, I could probably sell items in a booth at a market, but what can you stitch in 5 minutes?! NOTHING!

    Enjoy what you make, that's the whole point.

    Cheers,

    Leah

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