My First Mug Rug!

Quilting is not my forté, so I did some random squiggly thing on my machine. Anyone who might pity my lack of skill is very welcome in my home to give on-the-spot lessons. I'll provide lodging and meals. By the way, I avoid binding if I can help it.

Last spring, I discovered this link party, and I've wanted to make a mug rug ever since.

Sadly, my quilting skills are severely deficient.

For that reason, and because of another recent major relocation and a long sewing to-do list,

I've put it off until today.

There are oodles of mug rugs online, including a flickr group and various others.

For those who don't know what I mean by "mug rug", it's been described as being smaller than a placemat and larger than a coaster, with the purpose of making a cup of coffee or tea more at-home.

I've seen a few amazing designs that I'd love to try, like this, this, this, these, and this.

I may or may not eventually get around to making one of them, but today I was suddenly inspired to make not just any mug rug, but a 

Steelers

mug rug.

The Steelers idea has been in my head for some time, and a while back I saw a beautiful Cathedral Window quilt that was simply breathtaking. 

The design is perfect for making the Steelers insignia, but I couldn't recall where I had seen the quilt. A search of a few blogs led me to this variation of the Cathedral Window block, complete with a tutorial.

My handy embroidery machine was helpful, too.

Here's a back view of the finished product:

I've been so inspired lately by other bloggers to use up some of my scraps. This could become an addiction, although I ran from anything akin to quilting several years ago.

It seems almost unfair that I have this. I'm not exactly a faithful Steelers fan; but my husband and children are.

I'm sure there's someone far more deserving of this mug rug. I just felt the need to make it.

Besides, I couldn't bring myself to risk getting coffee stains on it.

It was a blast to make, though!

This was finished just in time for Amy's Sew & Tell tomorrow: