Coasters

As I sew I have a habit of chucking small bits and pieces of leftover fabric into a box. (It's sooo difficult to throw them away isn't it?) Well, the box will inevitably overflow at some point, so once in a while I go through it and try to make something out of the contents.

This time I came up with coasters. I got the idea at the office one day. I was trying hard to concentrate on work, but got constantly distracted by a sticky ring on my desk from where my coffee cup had been the previous day.

These coasters are really simple to make. Which is really great, given my schedule these days. All you need is two squares, 4" or 5" squares work wonderfully, and one square of batting.

So what you do is place the front and back pieces together (with right sides facing) on top of the square of batting. Like in the (blurry) photo below.

 Line everything up and  stitch with a 1/4 inch seam allowance along the edge, leaving about a 2 inch gap (for turning) between your starting point and stopping point. Trim away excess batting and trim the corners to reduce bulk.

Using the opening you left earlier, turn everything inside out. Quilt as desired. Don't forget to quilt over the gap to close it. I used simple straight line quilting in my coaster here.



You can also make them out of smaller pieces of scraps, like I did. Just piece enough of them together to get the desired (4" or 5" square) size, and repeating the steps above.

I love just mixing the fabric and colour randomly. That way when you flip the coaster over it's like you get a totally new one!

These babies are going to the office with me. Let's see if I can make enough for my colleagues too.

Wishing you a good week ahead!