Spotlight on Melbourne

A couple of weeks ago my big sis in Oz asked if I had any spare mug rugs hanging about. She has gone off coffee big time and has reverted to using a teapot. So she fancied a teapot stand and mug rug.

I instantly knew which fabric I wanted to use - I bought it last year in Spotlight, in Cairns. It's a cotton / linen mix with images of Melbourne on it. Sis lived for many years there so I hoped the right project would show itself eventually.

I looked to Ayumi's book 

and decided to make the hexagonal trivet and two co-ordinating mug rugs, they are smaller than the trivet but don't look much smaller in my photos. I sized them at 110% of the pattern in the book.

Foundation pieced, I mixed the Melbourne fabric with some colours inspired by the drawings and added in some fine calico, it's a quilting quality, just lovely - think it would be described as muslin in the US whereas our muslin is so thin you could spit peas through it -(a favourite saying of my mum - never saw her try it on anything thankfully)

My only modification was to choose not to do a separate binding - I was a bit pressed for time and decided to "bag" it. When I do this I always split the backing, sew it back together leaving a gap in the centre of the backing for turning. This saves the tell tale bulge that usually happens (with me) when I leave a gap on the side.You can see where I have done this on this pic.

I used Insulbright for the trivet to make it heatproof. And for the mugrugs, Hobbs 80/20

 This has ended up being a wee early birthday pressie, so Happy Birthday, Auld Yin.x