8 Days of Christmas Mug Rugs from Finland: Day 8 with Nina

Welcome to Day 8 of our challenge “8 Days of Christmas Mug Rugs from Finland”! The maker of today’s minimalist mug rug is Nina, founder and owner of Sentti & Tuuma.

The Mug Rug

I used a pattern of my own design, which you will get cutting instructions for below. I’m calling it ”Three Christmas Gifts”. It’s intended for your personal use only and if a friend would like their own instructions, please refer them to this blog.

When looking for Christmas patterns on Pinterest for inspiration, I found one similar to my uppermost shape, designed by Kristina Brinkerhoff for Moda Bake Shop and drew my own, smaller slightly different version, then added two others as well.

The pieces are small to work with and therefore a bit fiddly, but if you take your time to press well, bulk should be no huge issue. I like to press open usually, but in the tiny flying geese up on top I stitched along the diagonal, cut and pressed both seam allowances to the green triangles.

Echo quilting is a favourite, usually starting next to the shape itself. I just enjoy seeing shapes emphasised by stitching. Each line was stitched with larger gap compared to the one before.

Hand quilting is another favourite, but I have yet to decide whether to add this outline to the inner edge of each gift segment. The threads are 12-weight Aurifil in colours 2265 (red) and 2870 (green).

The binding is 2″ wide and stitched at 1/8″ from the backing. The mug rug finishes at a bit over 7″ x 9″.

And now the sizes of the patches making up Three Christmas Gifts:

If you use directional fabrics, please note the first measurement corresponds to x axis (horizontal) and second one the y axis (vertical). This is how I prefer patterns to be written.

If you use the pattern to make a mug rug of your own, I’d love to be tagged! Hope you enjoy making it and please ask in the comments below if you have questions.

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
• Day 8 with Nina (you’re here!)

Find our posts on Instagram at hashtag #SenttiJaTuumaChristmasMugRug.

Wrapping Up

To recap techniques used:

• Day 1 with Leena: foundation paper piecing (FPP)
• Day 2 with Tiina K: improvised patchwork
• Day 3 with Auli: reversible appliqué
• Day 4 with Tilkunviilaaja: English paper piecing (EPP) gone modern
• Day 5 with Teija: foundation paper piecing (FPP) and improvised patchwork
• Day 6 with Anu: foundation paper piecing (FPP) and improvised patchwork
• Day 7 with Marja: improvised patchwork
• Day 8 with Nina: basic patchwork on smaller scale

We also had a mix of free-motion quilting, walking-foot quilting and hand quilting.

This is it, dear reader! Thanks so much for following along here and on Instagram, for liking, commenting and sharing our posts! We hope you enjoyed this challenge, found ideas for your own Christmas and winter-themed mug rugs, got tips for stash building and pulling fabrics from it, and stumbled upon some new techniques to try this season.

Let us know your thoughts in the comments and don’t be a stranger!