Now I'm Just Coasting

Technically, I am the oldest child in my family. I mean, birth order definitely places me at the top of the pyramid. However, I am not the most “grown up” of my siblings. I would say I’m in a solidly comfortable third place...out of three children. It’s fine.  My mom says that I’m a free spirit, which I’m pretty sure is Mom-speak for “my oldest child kind of messed up her life, but we love her anyway.” I do things my own way and that’s just fine.

However, my sister just earned a major merit badge on the adulting sash: she bought a house. I know! On a scale of one to adult, that is right up there with actually understanding your retirement plan or becoming involved in local government. So,naturally, this was a milestone that had to be acknowledged...by crafting.

Since my sister and brother in law had the good fortune to be moving into their new home during the fall, I decided that I’d have to send at least one Halloween themed gift. It would just be bad manners not to. I decided to whip up another spell book. (Check that  tutorial here!). However, since my sister doesn’t exactly embrace the darkness in the same way that I do I make hers kinder, gentler, and more topical. Enter, the home blessings spell book!

She put it by her fireplace. Because she has a fireplace in her new adult house.

But that didn’t feel like enough of a gift. I needed something else. And what is something that everyone needs in their new house? Especially if they are going to be doing a lot of entertaining? That’s right: coasters. I came across this nifty tutorial from Martha Mary Mama and decided to give it a shot. How hard could it be, right?

Supplies:

Fabric

Insulated batting

Sewing machine

Coordinated thread

Step One

Cut your fabric. Look, we all know that I’m not good at this. Like, at all. I’ve spoken about it at length. Luckily I wasn’t drowning in fabric with this particular project. I had two coordinating fat quarters, one that featured pictures of the Eiffel Tower (my sister adores Paris and she and her husband went to France for their honeymoon) and the other a chevron pattern. I used the 5x5 square of cardboard that came with the fabric as a template and cut around that. I still didn’t do an awesome job, but I tried my very best.

Step Two

Lay your fabric down: the first piece right-side up, the second piece right-side down and the batting on top. Now, hopefully, your pieces of fabric are all the same size. If they’re not, you can still work around it. It will just make things more interesting.

I never like to make things easy on myself.

Step Three

Sew three edges of your coaster. It’s really important to only sew three edges, because you’re going to use the open edge to turn the coaster right side out so the proper pattern that you want is actually showing through. If you sew all four sides you won’t be able to turn the coast around and it will just look really messy and weird. Or so I’ve heard. I wouldn’t know from experience, or anything.  Nope.

Step Four

Provided that you’ve actually sewn only three sides of the coaster, now is the time to turn it right side out so you can admire your creation. Of course, you also need to sew up that fourth side. This is where the ladder/invisible stitch comes in. I am...not awesome at that particular stitch.  It is definitely something that I need to practice. However, it falls into the category of necessary evil because when you ignore that step and just use a regular straight stitch you get this monstrosity:

I had to learn to face my fears and actually practice my ladder stitch. It was either that or make a bunch of coasters that more closely resembled Frankenstein’s monster than a home accent.

Did my coasters come out perfectly? Aah, no. They definitely had some personality to them. However, they do their job and they were made especially for my sister based on something she loves. So that has to count for something, right? Right? Yeah...I’ll bring a bottle of good wine over the holidays.