Yep, it has been over 4 years since my last post. I guess I haven’t been making anything that exciting? Either that or just busy busy busy?

I digress. Lately I have been trying to practice my sewing skills when it comes to quilting, seams must be straight, pieces must be cut accurately……. Rather than diving in to a quilt or anything else that requires a lot of investment in time, materials and patience, I have been messing around with small blocks and coasters. (I also made some of these reusable hand warmers as gifts this Christmas, they came out cute!)

This is just a slight modification of the block that forms part of one of these mug rugs from the American Patchwork and Quilting website. I made the cat block as described, but when turning it into a standard square coaster…. it just didn’t look that cute, or that easily recognizable as a cat? So I made it smaller.

Smaller = cuter.

Miss Marcie agrees.

I took the cat block from the original mug rug, so please refer to those instructions for the details on how to assemble the “cat face”, but altered the dimensions of the pieces slightly so that I could make the face smaller and accommodate a border while still keeping it coaster-sized. I have listed the updated dimensions below (please forgive my novice instructions!)

For the “cat face” block you will need:

2 1 1/2″ [cat] squares

2 1 1/2″ [background] squares

1 1/2 x 4″ [background] rectangle

3 x 4″ [cat] rectangle

Where [cat] = fabric used for the cat’s face, and [background] is everything else. Follow the instructions in the original block, then add two pieces 1 x 4 1/4″ on either side of the “cat face”, and two more pieces 4 3/4 x 1″ to the top and bottom.

I quilted it using just some lines 1/4″ around the cat face, then at 1/4″ intervals, and added some simple stitching to the cat face itself using embroidery thread to show the nose, whiskers and ears.

Then it was just a case of trimming the block square, stitching it right sides together with some backing fabric leaving a gap for turning, and then turning it out and topstitching.

Cute no? I made some for my bestie, along with a different coaster design also:

She likes colour. Can you tell?