A project for coasting into the holidays

Published 3:08 pm Friday, November 2, 2007

With the holidays come invitations to share good times with friends and family, and if you’re looking for hostess gifts with a personal touch, why not stitch up a set of coasters?

While playing around with some new fabric paints a few weeks back, we made a bunch of little squares with no project in mind — we just wanted to see how the colors worked — and tucked them away in our “we’ll-need-these-someday” file.

Around the same time, we came across an article on penny rugs in one of our craft magazines and fell in love with the little felt circles used to create the folksy mats and wall hangings. We tucked it away in our “ideas-for-down-the-road” file.

Last week, as we hunted frantically through said files for something we’ve apparently misplaced, we came up with the idea to use both the painted squares and the felt circles to make coaster sets, and this week’s Craft Corner was born.

Let’s begin with the penny rug felt circle coasters.

According to the article in the Fall 2007 issue of “Creative Home Arts” magazine — and an online search for “penny rugs” — the little felt circles were used by homemakers in the 1800s to adorn mats, small rugs, coverlets and other home decorating items.

The crafters used scraps of wool and other leftover fabric, cut them into circles, then sewed them together using a simple stitch (usually a blanket stitch). Sometimes a coin was sewn into each circle stack to help weigh the piece down and make it lie flat: hence, the name penny rug.

To make our penny rug coasters, cut three circles of different colors — any size you desire — and sew them one on top of the other. We used just a simple straight stitch around the edge of each circle, being careful to make the stitches as even as possible, and finished the outer edge with a blanket stitch.

When finishing the outer edge, add another layer of felt or fabric of choice to the back of the circle stack and stitch them together with the blanket stitch.

Our felt and fabric squares are equally simple; all you need is felt, fabric, pinking shears and a needle and thread.

We used the little painted squares for our fabric, trimmed the edges with pinking shears, cut some felt pieces just a tad larger than the fabric, then sewed them together with a simple stitch.

You can add another layer of felt to the bottom and stitch it on when you finish the outer edge, or hide a piece of felt or fabric between the top and bottom pieces when you sew them together.

It isn’t necessary to use painted squares such as ours — any fabric that tickles your fancy will work — but keep the stitches a little on the sloppy side to give the coasters a whimsical flavor.

And as usual, our old friend, plastic canvas, can make a welcome appearance when making coasters.

We used some red yarn and peppermint stick crochet cotton to make some seasonal samples, and some sparkly champagne and rust yarn to make an autumn leaf design.

But don’t look too closely at our autumn leaf in the photo. We were up against a deadline and wanted to get the sample done in a hurry, so we used l-o-n-g stitches in some odd groupings to save time, but still show you what we had in mind in the way of color and design. You’ll want to use traditional needlepoint stitches for the project, unless of course you are one of those rebels who likes to live life on the edge.

There are plenty of plastic canvas pattern books with ideas for coaster designs around, so you should be able to customize a set for just about anyone on your holiday list.

Dress up your coasters with a festive bow or other embellishment, and present them to the host or hostess with a bottle of wine or other beverage of choice.

Note: Look for more about the paints used to make our felt and fabric coasters in an upcoming column, when we’ll combine them with other products (such as a resist) on different fabrics (silk and canvas) to make one-of-a-kind gift items.

Want to get a jump on our column and try out the paints ahead of time? They’re called Dye-Na-Flow by Jacquard, and we were introduced to them by Linda and Dan Wright of Brushstrokes Art Supply in Arlington.

The Wrights can show you samples of finished pieces and get you started with the process involved. Brushstrokes is at 3704 172nd St. NE, Arlington; phone 360-658-4044.

Contact Jonetta Coffin at jrocoffin@aol.com