Friday 30 December 2016

A Set of Christmas Coasters...

...that I made for this Christmas and no one wants to use them. Not because we don't like them, but quite the opposite. The boys are saying that they are too pretty and nice to be used for something like a cup of tea that might stain the coaster. Well, I kind of agree with them. :-) The coasters turned out so sweet that I myself keep looking at them and fiddling with them while having my cup of tea and trying my best to keep my cup on the very corner of a coaster or using a different mug rug all together. That's ridiculous and we should stop this nonsense once and for all and enjoy using the things I make no matter how much we love them. Right?


The inspiration for this design came from the sweetest book by Kazuko Aoki called "The Embroidered  Garden" that is full of amazing patterns and ideas. Kazuko created beautiful postcards using a collage that combined some embroidery motifs and paper stamps. I really liked the idea and wanted to make something similar, but with fabric. I made a set of Spring coasters using the same design that you can see here, but this set was made especially for Christmas because of the Belle and Boo fabric called "Christmas".


I made a set of six coasters that are a bit larger than the typical size. For the base I used Japanese linen that I got from Ministry of Fabric. I enjoyed making the fabric stamps even more this time around because I decided to carve my own 5c rubber stamp and it was fun! I can see myself attempting to make more of them. I used my son's old eraser (that he thought I was just borrowing...hehe...) and a precision knife.


For the post mark I used red and brown inks to give it a bit more colour and I used two different stamps as well. I was not sure about stamping the post mark directly onto the linen and was trying to make a separate stamp for that, but after a few arrangements, I decided against it and went with the original plan.


As always, I gravitate towards simple designs with easy details that together make something nice to bring joy to people who use it. In this case it's us and we have to really try and simply enjoy using the coasters instead of thinking how nice they look. Have a fabulous last day of 2016 everybody! Larisa xox


P.S.: I am happy to add that while I was writing this post which took me something like five days, we managed to overcome our "cuteness avoidance" syndrome and have been happily using the coasters for our afternoon and late night teas. Happy cute sewing! xox

4 comments:

  1. Those coasters are so cute and I can see why you'd hesitate to use them! I love the stamp and post mark. I want to try to do something similar now:) Thank you for sharing!

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    1. Thank you, Cindy! I can happily say that we are using them now and I love them. I even want to make coasters in a similar design. Give it a go! Stamping on fabric is a lot of fun!

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  2. They are gorgeous, Larisa! I can understand everyone's reluctance to use them. I made some hand-stitched tablemats for my mother for Christmas, one year, using the Somerset patchwork technique. As she was unwrapping the parcel, my sons warned her that she had to like them as they had taken me so long to make, and that she had better not get them dirty!

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    1. Thank you, Dina so much! It's so sweet of your sons to care about the things you create and effort you put into making them. I have made a Somerset Star for the first time recently and I am in love with this technique. I can just imaging how pretty the tablemats you made looked. I can say that we are using the coasters now, but I am making sure that everyone is very careful with them. :-)

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