Holiday Gift Blog Hop: Day 3

Christmas countdown: 21 days!

Are you ready?

This week, we'll be sharing tutorials for last-minute homemade gift ideas. Skip the stores (well, except your local quilt shop!) and spend time at your sewing machine instead. 

Today Beth from Love Laugh Quilt is here, sharing her tutorial for a berry basket full of coasters (check out the photo and you'll totally understand the description!). We're guessing that pretty much anyone on your list could use a set of coasters, and the prints Beth chose from our Origins collection give this idea some modern flair! Hand stitching accents add detail, and we guarantee you'll also love the round fussy-cut version Beth made. Check out Beth's tutorial and and at the end you'll see how you can enter to win a fat quarter bundle of the Origins prints.

HOMEMADE.

The BEST kind of gift.

:)

This year I'm ready with a little homemade gift

that I can make for ALL my friends and family.

A "berry basket" full of coasters!!

Practical

and PRETTY!

The beautiful fabric I'm using

 is ORIGINS by Benartex.

Berry Basket ingredients:

**************

TWO 10"x 10" squares of fabric

ONE 9"x 9" square of cotton batting

ONE strip 1 3/4" x 22" fabric for binding

Lay fabric squares down

CUT FOUR 2"x 2" squares off of each corner.

Save these for the coasters....

OR put them in your scrap basket.

Cut 2"x 2" squares OFF of each corner of batting as well.

Lay batting on ONE fabric square

and stitch TWO lines through the middle each way.

This helps hold your batting in place as you

put it all together....

and adds to the quilting stitches

you'll be adding soon.

Place BOTH fabric squares together

RIGHT sides together.

Sew ONLY around each CORNER.

Leave outside edges UN-SEWN.

Make a SMALL SNIP in each corner.

OPEN up and PRESS.

NOW you can add some more quilting stitches.

:)

Time to ADD the binding and make this into a 

BASKET!

Lay binding strip along the MIDDLE of one side.

FOLD over the end before you begin sewing.

(Don't worry about which is the inside/outside, right side/wrong side of basket.

It reverses VERY easily.)

STOP when you get to the end of your FIRST side.

Take the next side and move it ADJACENT to where you stopped.

BEGIN sewing SECOND side.

It's a little FIDDLY....but YOU can DO IT!

Do this as you go ALL the way around.

This is what it looks like when you're at the END!

Binding should just overlap

the BEGINNING of the strip a little.

Trim the excess.

ROLL binding over the top of basket folding the raw edge IN

and PIN all around.

TOP stitch the binding down.

You did it!

Now you need to add the COASTERS!

Coaster ingredients:

(photo/instructions shows ingredients for ONE only.

I"m sure you'll want to make more!)

***********

ONE 3" x 3" FOCUS fabric

FOUR 2" x 2" complimentary fabric

FOUR 2" x 3" muslin/cream/white

ONE 6" x 6" fabric (backing)

ONE 6" x 6" cotton batting

Embroidery floss for quilting (not shown)

Sew your 9 patch coaster together.

Layer:

Batting, coaster square

and put backing 6"x 6" FACE down on coaster.

SEW around the three layers

leaving a small opening.

TRIM corners.

Turn right side out.

Slip stitch opening closed.

ADD some BIG stitches with embroidery thread.

(I used 6 strands of green)

Aren't they LOVELY??

The ORIGIN line of fabric also has this beautiful

MOTIF that makes a nice size coaster

with a LOT less work.

;)

These pretty designs fit in the berry basket as well!!

For these coasters

I cut the floral shape out leaving some seam allowance....

laid it face to face with backing and batting....

SEWED around following the outside of the floral design.

(I could see it from the back of the fabric)

I turned it right side out.

Slip stitched the opening closed.

SUPER simple!

Enjoy the holidays!

Thanks Beth!
Head over to Beth's blog to find out how you can win a fat quarter bundle of the Origins fabric collection.

Check out our other quick and easy holiday gift tutorials!
Day 1: Baby blocks using Safari Playground

Day 2: Travel sewing kit using Made with Love
Day 4: Mitered napkin set using Boy Meets Girl 
Day 5: Bow banner using Zoey

Day 6: Handy golf bag using On the Green

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