Welcome to My Crafting Journey Hello everyone, and welcome back! If you have been following along with me, you will know I am currently working on a lovely theme of “keeping Christmas alive”. I am doing this by upcycling a beloved old linen tablecloth that has been sitting patiently in my cedar chest for many years. Each month, I dive into a new project to enhance the use of this beautiful fabric. This time around, I decided it was time to put a spotlight on the scraps!

The Scrap Stash I absolutely refuse to waste any material. I utilise every single little piece of scrap fabric I can get my hands on! Recently, I started collecting all the offcuts from making pieces for my festive table. Using a bit of heat and bond, I love to cut out little hearts from these scraps, iron them onto another piece of fabric, and then secure them with a beautiful blanket stitch. They add the perfect charming touch to my creations, and you will see them pop up a lot in this project!

Crafting the Coasters Following on from the circular dessert mats I made last month, I decided to try my hand at some machine quilting to create beautiful festive coasters. I cut out lovely tree shapes from my tablecloth scraps and backed them all with heat and bond.

For the base of the coasters, I repurposed some old white pillowcases and added some adhesive interfacing to the back for that much needed stiffness. Once I peeled the backing off my scrap trees, I simply took them to the iron and pressed them onto the base.

To bring the trees to life, I added a piece of fabric across the bottom and used some old green sheeting that I dyed years ago for the sides, as it perfectly matched the festive colours. Sewing this to the edge of the tree gave it a fabulous triangle effect! A bit of simple stitching created the tree trunk. I finished off the square coasters by sewing two pieces of fabric together, adding a little ribbon on top, and attaching my signature blanket stitched hearts. I made eight of these coasters in total, and they are going to look absolutely stunning sitting on the dinner table with a nice glass of wine!

Creating the Wooden Chargers My next project involved making some sturdy fabric covered rounds to sit underneath dinner plates or act as the base for a festive centrepiece. I initially bought four thin wooden rounds from a discount shop, but unfortunately, the wood lacked thickness and completely buckled!

To fix this and ensure they laid perfectly flat, I decided to glue two of the rounds together, clamping them tightly all the way around until they were fully dry. Once they were nice and sturdy, I glued some soft felt to the bottom to protect the table surface.

For the top, I followed the exact same method I used for my dessert plates in a previous video. I decorated them with the same lovely tree motifs, using a felt trunk with zigzag edges for extra texture, the green fabric along the sides, and my favourite stitched hearts. I made two of these beautiful rounds, and I am planning to sit some little decorative trees on top of them to create a glorious centrepiece.

Until Next Time! It is incredibly rewarding to see what you can create when you utilise every single scrap. I am so thrilled with my eight new coasters and two centrepiece chargers. We will have to see what we can come up with for the month of May!