The Mug Rug.

The what?

Mug Rug. It’s a glorified coaster for your mug.

And there are 197 people swapping them on Flickr. Yes it’s the latest obsession and I’m right in there like a dirty shirt baby.

One of my favorite things about joining swaps is creating my inspiration collage. Man there are some talented people out there..

I also like stalking my partners. Ok that sounded bad…

I don’t “stalk” them stalk them, I just like going through their favorites list and getting those creative juices going. I love coming up with something new, or different. Or just plain fun.

So after mulling over some ideas for awhile, I came up with this concept for my partner’s mug rug:

Hrm, which color palette do I choose…

Yellows?

Or pinks?

Since I couldn’t decide just then, I began with the leaf and base..

The little Owl bug:

I tried the yellow but it just hurt my eyes. So I went with pink and I’m glad I did:

Now I once learned that when sewing curves, you need to notch out your seam allowance so that it lies nice when you turn your work and press the seam. So that’s what I did for the center of the flower. But it totally did NOT work..

What the heck? Every notch I made just left these annoying points all… around… the… &#&*@#^$… circle.

Otherwise I love this thing! Isn’t that owl just so cheerful? I studied my partner’s tastes and favorite mugs closely, and I’m fairly certain she’ll love it too.

Now to fix that center, because it’ll drive me nuts if I don’t. *sigh*