Christmas in March?

I had on my Christmas socks the other day when it was much cooler than it is now, and I started thinking (always dangerous). Perhaps I should start making a few Christmas gifts early, instead of waiting until the last minute and trying to do it all at once.

Anyway, I happened to look
down and saw one of the coasters a friend had given me several years back. She said that she and her sisters had done a lot of them for Christmas gifts, and they made them together while they were visiting.

Hmmmmm.......

I looked closely at the coaster and decided it would not be a hard thing at all to make.

Here are the steps:

First of all you will need six - 4" squares of fabric and one - 4" square of quilt batting or flannel, or whatever you can get your hands on for an absorbent filling.

Now make a little "sandwich" of two of the pieces of material, with right sides of fabric facing outward and batting in the middle. Sew all around the edges. I zig-zagged around it, too, just to be secure.

Take your remaining four pieces of fabric and fold them in half to make triangles, and press.
Now start layering on top of the "sandwich", with the corners of your triangles each going to a corner of the "sandwich".

It's a little hard to explain, and I hope you can see how it works from the pictures, but you overlap the triangles as you go.

Keep going until you have all four triangles layered on top of your "sandwich". It should look something like this:

Pin securely, because all these layers will really try to slide around on you when you're sewing:).

Sew all around, close to edge and finish up with zig-zag stitch. Turn and press. Make as many as you want. I made four this time around.

After finishing these last night, I decided I would work on my quilt for a while. I was stitching along like mad:

Then I discovered that the bobbin thread had run out. Time to quit. :)

How about you? Started Christmas making yet?

~Elaine~