Fall Themed Mug Rug: English Paper Piecing with All Points Patchwork

I’m a little nervous posting this project as it didn’t turn out the way I first wanted it to. I’m new to English Paper Piecing (EPP for short) but REALLY wanted to try this out and blog tours always give me the motivation I need to complete a project. This post is for the Design Your Own Mug Rug blog hop for Diane Gillehand’s new book All Points Patchwork.

Disclaimer: this post contains affiliate links. All affiliate links are marked with an .*

I received a digital copy of the book for free for the purpose of this review. All opinions are 100% my own though.

So I am brand new to EPP, please forgive me for any wonkiness you may find. (I also decided to try out free motion quilting for the first time too!)

pileofhexies — A pile of pretty orange hexies to look at 🙂 They’re so cute!

This is the drawing I did to plan out my mug rug. The squiggly lines were to be free motion quilted. As you can see I wanted to do a Halloween/Fall inspired mug rug but then I had a hard time translating my drawing into shapes. My pumpkin looked more like a flower using hexies, but I couldn’t figure out which shapes would work best. Hexies are just so cute I wanted to use them! But I know probably not the best shape to use for this project so I will be experimenting with that a bit more.

As suggested in All Points Patchwork * I tried out the Google Drawings program to help me figure out the layout for the project using shapes. Graphic work on computers is not my forte, ha. But you can download it by clicking on the picture below, if you’d like. I will update it when I can finally figure out which shapes to use to make the best pumpkin.

In the end I wasn’t happy with a flower-like pumpkin so I decided to applique the hexies in a straight line onto the background. I then attempted FMQ on the squiggly lines and leaf shapes. My first time attempting, I definitely need some work getting the stitch lengths more even, but it was fun so I definitely will be doing more FMQ as well.

All Points Patchwork * goes into great detail on how to do EPP and gives many project ideas using shapes from hexagons to triangles. It is a great resource if you’re interested in learning more about EPP and designing your own projects. Looking through the book again I realized I probably should have tried to make my pumpkin out of an octagon instead of hexagon. I work on that and make up a new one. I ♥ mug rugs so I don’t mind making more!