Pay It Forward: Reveal (at long last!)

Back a long (long) time ago, I signed up for Pay It Forward and for my trouble I got a beautiful 241 tote bag from Toni.  I subsequently posted and got my 3 people to make for - Michelle @ The Quilted Tortoise, Erin @ Billy Button Design and Deb @ Life on the Selvage Edge . So far, so good. But my pregnancy and all the issues I had put paid to my reaching my deadline for sending out my goodies late last year, and though I tried, I really couldn't find the energy to finish those projects. The 3 ladies were very understanding and gracious and as soon as I started to get some sewing energy back, I set to finishing their projects as one of my first priorities.

Michelle @ The Quilted Tortoise

Now that their gifts have been received, I can finally do a little reveal. Anyone following me on Instagram will have seen some of my pictures of these earlier in the year, so you can skip. But for anyone else who wants a little bit of eye candy, here are the 3 circles mug rugs that I hand quilted for my recipients.

Erin @ Billy Button Design

All were stitched using Perle Cotton #8. The pink/red ones used a single variegated thread. The blue used an aqua variegated thread, and a combination of a number of other blue shades to try to balance it a little.

These were made using a sew-along tutorial by Rachel of Contented and if you haven't tried hand quilting before, this is a fabulous project to start with - its very straightforward and the instructions are great, and you end up with a lovely mini quilt at the end. This is one of my go-to projects when I need something special - very enjoyable sewing and a big impact because of the ripple effect and texture of all the stitching. I hope my recipients enjoy them as much as I loved making them :-)