MAKING MERRY : Liz T. Edition

Welcome to Day 2 of Making Merry with Janome: A Mug Rug

It is certainly that time of the year when we like our steaming mugs of coffee; hot chocolate or tea. Mug rugs make a great addition to any sewists creative space and provide an opportunity to try new methods in a small format. Today’s Merry sample involves a variety of techniques, but you can do most anything: applique, printing on fabric or mini modern quilts juts to name a few.

Simple Cut Mug Rug Instructions

This little project uses 3 different techniques in our SIMPLE CUT SOFTWARE. This software comes included with the purchase of our ARTISTIC EDGE 15 DIGITAL CUTTER & PLOTTER.

Here’s how we made this mug rug:

• Open the Simple Cut software. Select New and up will pop the Techniques menu. Select Cut, Embroidery and Crystals.

Note the green buttons showing I have selected 3 of the 5 techniques seeing as I want to cut the snowflake; I want to embroider/applique-in-the-hoop around the snowflake AND I want to add crystals.

• Press next, select the fabric type, hoop size & brand + the size of the cutting mat.
• Then import the snowflake graphic from wherever it is saved on the computer (I have mine in a folder I named Edge Cutter).
• The software then asks me if I want to open the snowflake graphic as a backdrop or do I want to trace it to form outlines? I chose trace as it is much easier to let the software create all those fiddly little edges than me do it manually! Keep going with accepting the default settings until you reach this screen:

• Notice there are different techniques or functions showing at the top of the Object Properties box: Running & Satin Serial refer to the applique embroidery; Array & Crystals to the crystals function – which I will add later; and Cut to the function which will cut my snowflake.
• NO way was I ever going to cut such a fiddly snowflake applique with a pair of scissors!  There are just not enough minutes available for me to waste on things like that. But I am right there ready to send it to the Artistic Edge Digital cutter which cuts it for me in a matter of seconds. Seriously! I prepped the fabric as discussed in earlier posts (November 2015) and then cut the turquoise cotton fabric out on the high tac mat in the cutter using the yellow cap blade. The fabric had fusible web ironed to the back, so I just peeled away the release paper and put it to one side for the hoop embroidery part…..coming up.

• Notice the snowflake has been outlined and the applique stitch I selected was the blanket stitch or traditional applique stitch. Next I need to send the design to my Janome Embroidery machine.  I can do this with whatever method I prefer: wirelessly from my laptop to the Janome MC15000;   save the design to my USB stick; or via the direct cable connection.
• Hoop up the MC15000 SQ14 embroidery hoop with stabilizer, baste the pale turquoise mug rug fabric onto the stabilizer and position the snowflake where you want it to stitch out on your mug rug. Stitch the placement line – colour #1. Then lay the cut snowflake down on top of the placement line so it is perfectly lined up.  Of course, you can use ANY of our Janome Embroidery machines to do this embroidery. Our MC15000, MC12000, MC9900 and the new MC500E all have this wonderful basting function and the ability to stitch out appliques.
• Remove the hoop from the machine and use a mini iron to fuse the applique in position. Do this carefully so as not to dislodge anything nor melt or burn the side of the hoop (hence the suggestion of a mini iron)!
• Back at the embroidery machine, Stitch colour #2 which is the applique stitching.
• All that remains is to apply the crystals to the snowflake. Please refer to the blog post published last month on 23 November for the how to technique details for doing this. Here is the template material which I cut for the snowflake

• Next I “sandwiched” the mug rug with low loft batting and a backing fabric. The sandwich was returned to the embroidery machine for a quick little quilting design in the other half of the mug rug.  This time I hooped up with a piece of water soluble stabilizer which will wash away later before I make my cup of tea!
• The mug rug was trimmed and then bound with the Janome Quilt Binder set. There are numerous blog posts featuring this incredible attachment. Please search for Quilt Binder set in the search box.  But stay tuned as we will do another post about this incredible JANOME QUILT BINDER SET which binds our quilts so quickly and easily. It is a great item to put on your Christmas Wish List if you do not already own one.

Sneak Peek for Day 3

Tomorrow we will be visiting Jackie W. (Quite possibly the Queen of Polka Dots) for our next stop on the Making Merry Blog Tour. See you then!

Liz