See more crafts in the Handmade Holidays series.

Give your holiday mugs a festive place to rest with this mug rug craft submitted by Kathleen Cavanaugh. She said she often makes these rugs for her quilting business clients as thank you gifts.

These 6½-by-6½-inch rugs also have a clever pocket where you can slip in a cookie or candy for a coffee break snack.

CHRISTMAS MUG RUG

Supplies

» 3 fat quarters of Christmas or holiday-themed fabric (label these fabrics 1, 2 and 3)

» Backing fabric of a Christmas or holiday theme, 10-by-10-inches

» Thin polyester batting

» Coordinating thread

» Sewing machine

Directions

All seams ¼ inch.

For the top: Cut 6, 3½-inch squares from all three fabrics; 2 from fabric 1 and 4 from fabric 2. Sew one square from fabric 1 to fabric 2, right sides together. Repeat once more. Press seams open.

For the pocket: Sew remaining 2 squares from fabric 2, right sides together. Turn right sides out and press to make a 3½ square.

Construction: With right sides together, arrange the top squares opposite each other with the pocket square between them and placed over the like fabric square to form a pocket. Sew, keeping open edge of pocket free, and press seam.

Backing and batting: With wrong sides together layer backing, batting and finished top. Sew along the existing seams through all three layers (this will do the “quilting” on the rug).

For the binding: Trim only the batting to within ¼ inch edge of the top. Trim the backing to within ¾ inch of the top. Fold the backing over the batting and top, folding a ¼-inch hem then ¼-inch again to form the binding. Stitch close to the edge of the binding through all layers.

Difficulty: 4 out of 4

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