The Knitting Group Holiday Party Gift Exchange

One member of our Monday knitting group is the party instigator, and she decided to host a December gathering at her home. She also decided that we would have a gift exchange, and the gifts should be items either that we made ourselves, or they could be "recycled" items.  That was easy for me - none of the ones who were coming are quilters.  The dollar value was small, so I made mug rugs.  When knittters and weavers make mug rugs, they are usually coaster sized.  But for some reason, quilters always make them much larger - well, they will say that provides room for a cookie.  These are about 6x8.

Some of the members don't celebrate Christmas, so I picked a winter theme and named the set "Appalachian Winter Sky."

The colors go with the mugs we've been collecting, so I also took a shot of each one modeled by a different mug.

A contemporary mat with a leaf-mug

An Ohio Star with a drip glaze pattern mug

 

A Christmas Star with more leaves

And the last rug is string pieced and has the mug from our local Mangum pottery on Main Street.

 

These are so small, I quilted them on my DSM.  If you don't think about longarm quilting machines, you probably never called yours a "domestic sewing machine" - but among industrial machine owners, we just use the abbreviation, DSM.

We drew numbers and picked our packages.  Ann from Wales who lives in the neighborhood knew which package was mine and chose it.  She seems delighted with the little "rugs".  The back side is a dark blue print with silver snowflakes - I forgot to take a photo!