Spring Coasters

This year, like never before I have been waiting for the Spring to come and finally it's here. The sun is shining, the new leaves on trees are popping out here and there, spring flowers are blooming and you can just feel the warmth in the air. To celebrate the arrival of the Spring I decided to make a set of coasters with spring flowers based on Kazuko Aoki's book "The Embroidered Garden" that I bought recently. I have been a huge fan of Kazuko's work since the first time I saw one of her embroideries. Her work is exquisite, delicate and very detailed. If you like any kind of hand embroidery, I am sure you would enjoy Kazuko Aoki's books.

For any gardener the year starts in Spring, so I thought it would be a good idea to begin my embroidery based on Kazuko's book in Spring as well. I chose four spring flowers for my coasters: Mimosa, Buttercups, Scilla and my favourite, Lily of the Valley.

The embroidery patterns are very simple and literally take only a few minutes to complete. I was going to embroider the flowers in the right bottom corner and maybe add a bit of writing and running stitching, but flicking through the book, the card making part caught my attention - a combination of embroidery patches and stamps.

It did not take long to put all the bits and pieces together. I used a light weight linen for the embroidery and the heavier one for the body of the coasters. The fabric stamps, based on Amy's of NanaCompany tutorial, came in handy. I especially like the one with three trees and of course the one with Boo Bunny. A mail stamp in brown ink added that final finishing touch to these little "cards".

So simple, so easy to make, but honestly a lot of satisfaction with the final result. It's a wonderful project for anyone who is looking for something quick to make, for someone who is not that confident yet with more complicated embroidery patterns or someone who just wants to use up some of the fabric scraps. Wishing you all a wonderful week! Larisa xox