Scrappy Mug Rug Swap Round 3

Round 3 of the Scrappy Mug Rug Swap came to a close at the end of last month. My partner was ellesquare,  who listed that she liked birds and trees, among other things. Our swap mamas were good to us, and we had a lot of the same likes and dislikes.

After appropriately stalking her Flickr and blog, I pulled together this set of fabrics from various shops online:

It includes Lotus Dots from Amy Butler in Tangerine, Wallflower from Amy Butler in sky, eggs from It's a Hoot, and some green Henna Garden. Both the Amy Butler and Henna Garden were from her ISO list on her Flickr profile. After mulling around some various ideas, this is what I came up with for a design:

I made a couple of modifications along the way, and here is the final product:

The sky and grass are pieced (my first curved piecing!), and everything else was hand-appliqued using a blanket stitch. For a stabilizer I used some sheets I picked up at my LQS that are designed for applique and dissolve once washed. This helped keep all my little pieces from getting wonky while I was stitching. I also purchased a glue stick when it got to the bunting - that was a super help on keeping the edges down on all those little triangles and preventing stray threads from escaping.

I packed it up with my Henna Garden scraps and an extra FQ in Raspberry along with a couple Godiva chocolates, and got it mailed off at the very last second. In retrospect, I wish I had used a solid blue for the sky and kept the wallflower for the back of the rug, but I still think it ended up cute. I am a work-in-progress when it comes to combining prints - I am much more comfortable with solids.

Meanwhile, I received this { a d o r a b l e } hedgie mugrug from karensc0sm0s. I love the tiny piecing, and hedgehogs have a special place in my heart. When we were back in college, my husband and I had a pet hedgehog named Dot. She was crazy cute, but someone stole her from her cage when we were gone for a couple days. (There was maintenance being done on our apartment.) It still makes me sad. Whether they took her for themselves, or thought some crazy college kids trapped a wild porcupine and thought they were "rescuing" it, or whatever happened, there was no way she got out of her cage and the apartment without leaving any trace outside of her cage. Who steals someone's pet?

But back on topic, I love this little hedgie!

In fact, I love it so much, you may see me reuse the hedgie pattern in a project soon. ;)

This was my first experience in a swap, and it was definitely a lovely experience. :)

<3 Kelsey

UPDATE: Linking up to Hoo's Got Talent.