Galentine's Day Mug Rug

As a brand new Island Batik Ambassador for 2018 one of my first challenges was to create a postcard or mug rug for Galentine's Day.

"Galentine's Day is a celebration of our best gal pals and lady friends, and is the day before Valentine's Day. Why shouldn't we celebrate our fellow females who encourage and inspire us?!"

I was supposed to use fabrics from the box that Island Batik is so generously shipping to me, but the box is still in transit and will not arrive until later this month. What to do then?

I remembered that I won a giveaway hosted by Joan of Moose Stash Quilting a little bit over a year ago. The prize was a stack of 5" squares of the Tide Pools collection from Island Batik! Yes, I had some of their batiks in my possession! I searched my stash and found the so called Island Stamp stack of squares.

With this limited amount of fabric I went searching for an appropriate pattern, and I found a free one at Craftsy. It uses only 5" squares, and it worked out perfectly with the fabrics on hand. 

 The back is a four-patch of the purple/green/aqua colors of the stack.

This is the assembled sandwich before sewing all the layers together.

After turning the mug rug right-side out, stitching around the outside edge, and adding some in-the-ditch quilting, it looks like this. My mug rug is 8" square. I like the 3D-effect of the folded flying geese!

 

The quilting shows off better on the back. I love the colors of this side of the mug rug.

I am now patiently waiting for my box of batiks, lets hope they arrive before my next challenge is due! If not, I still have an amount of the 5" squares as a backup.