Parade of Elephants {plus a giveaway}

The giveaway is now closed.  The winner was #144 Scrapatches.  Thank you everyone who commented!!!!

Thanks for visiting today!  There are lots of wonderful stops on today’s schedule for the April Showers Blog Hop and it is raining mug rugs!  I have a parade of elephants to share.

I made four mug rugs—one for each daughter plus me.  The fabrics are all sorts of scraps I had handy and charms from a low volume swap.  The pattern is from the Patchsmith on Craftsy and is very affordable at only $1.99.  She has lots of patterns to choose from (I may have gotten more than one…).  The backing is a cute cherry print so they can be reversible.

Don’t forget to check out all the other great mug rugs on the hop today!

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10th

Hayley @ Mrs. Pickles

Karen @ Sew Much 2 Luv

Mélanie @ Les passions de Cliodana

Cindy @ Quilt Doodle Doodles

Jamie @ Busy Bee Quilts

Judy @ That Other Blog

Regena @ The Distracted Domestic

Amy @ Domesticity and other Ponderous Things

Denise @ My Whittle Adventures

Heather @ a Reformed Heath'n

Marica @ ~Englating~

Much thanks to Erin at Sew At Home Mummy for helping organize and cheer on all the participants, and a big thanks to Madame Samm for all her hard work!!! 

Now for a fun giveaway!  Leave me a comment to be entered to win two mini charm packs of the Boo Crew by Sweetwater from Quilt Taffy.  What would you make?  I’ll be using mine to make a tabletopper for Halloween this year.  Do you think that’ll be enough time or will I be working on it at midnight on October 30th?!?

International entries welcome.  Followers can have a second entry—just let me know you follow!  Have a wonderful day!

Swap Goodies

I participated in a swap sponsored by Pink Stitches.  My partner has received her package, and although I’m pretty sure she doesn’t read my blog, I wanted to wait to share a photo of everything I sent.

The apron and key fob turned out great (brown & pink and black & white are her two favorite color combos), but I’m a little skeptical of the mug rug.  First of all, I guess it’s smaller than most.  It only measures about 4 x 6 inches.  I have never seen another mug rug in person before, so I thought they were pretty small, like a coaster for a mug.  It was a challenge getting the binding on.  I had to cut off the first faux binding that I attempted, so it probably would have measured about 5 x 8 if the first try had been successful.  I bit the bullet and put on traditional binding the second time.  It still is cute.

I think I will make more mug rugs in the future.  They are fast and fun to make. 

The pins came from Michael's. Many quilters have mentioned them on the Farmer's Wife Sampler Yahoo group.  I thought I'd give them a try and bought an extra box for my partner.  I do like them, but I like regular pins too.  I might not be an experienced enough piecer to make an accurate comparison.  They sure do get easily lost in my carpet though, because the glass pin heads are so small and translucent.  I've never used the no-melt pins with the cute, bright flowers on top.  They will be next on my list:)