8 Days of Christmas Mug Rugs from Finland: Day 7 with Marja

Welcome to Day 7 of our challenge “8 Days of Christmas Mug Rugs from Finland”! The maker of today’s cheerful improv mug rug(s!) is Marja.

The Mug Rug

Marja used patterns of her own design when making two (!) mug rugs improvisationally. She calls the spruce trees “slightly hilarious” for being a bit wonky. Precision is important to her but she decided to let loose this time—with fabulous results! The negative space of each design lets the heroes, trees and stars, to shine, scattered as they are across the whole mug-rug area.

For background she chose a fabric that looks a solid colour, but in reality is a white-on-white pattern. These have started popping up in recent years and are their own flavour of gorgeous. In this case the pattern resembles flurry, small dots of snow, which is a perfect match with the red starry fabric and theme in general.

I also really like that she picked black for tree trunks, not brown, as it adds significantly to the graphic vibe. Just because a design may be slightly naivistic doesn’t mean it can pack a punch in terms of minimalism and/or bold colour differences.

The final decisions include the quilting and binding, and here the stars made with free-motion quilting in combination with a familiar-looking binding takes the project in a friendlier rather than edgier direction.

Who wouldn’t want to sit down at a table decorated with these two beauties? Marja, you can use a saucer to catch drips, no need to switch from red to white glögg unless you want to! 😀

Who is Marja?

Marja keeps a blog in Finnish at Marle. The URL says Marle tekee, which means Marle makes. See if Google Translate can help you find out what her writings mean in your own language.

Read Marja’s own post Joulufiilistä (Christmas feelings) where she ponders the process of making these mug rugs.

You can find her on Instagram at marja_karlin. Her account is private and I’m not sure about her principles for adding new followers.

Thank you so much, Marja, for this contribution to our challenge!

The Fabric

Please find the fabric Star Bright in Dark Red by Andover Fabrics in our webshop!

It’s on sale this week because we’re moving later in November to a new location, so grab some for your own winter sewing if you like 🙂 It’s a limited-edition print by Andover and won’t come back.

The Challenge

The blog posts of this “8 Days of Christmas Mug Rugs from Finland” challenge:

• Introduction to “8 Days of Christmas Mug Rugs from Finland”
• Day 1 with Leena
• Day 2 with Tiina K
• Day 3 with Auli
• Day 4 with Tilkunviilaaja
• Day 5 with Teija
• Day 6 with Anu
• Day 7 with Marja (you’re here!)
• Day 8

Find our posts on Instagram at hashtag #SenttiJaTuumaChristmasMugRug.

We continue tomorrow with the final (!) Day 8 contribution, so be sure to check back both here and on Instagram!