Molly’s Sketchbook: New Year’s Eve Coasters | Purl Soho

A New Year’s Eve party can be a hopeful, fun, and bubbly celebration, it’s a great excuse to toast the passage of time and the good things yet to come.  I created these coasters to add a bit of sophisticated fun to any New Year’s Celebration.  Page and I had both just taken the little girls in our lives to see the Nutcracker and came away completely inspired by the soft, elegant and magical palette of the Sugar Plum Fairies.  We picked our palette of silvery gray, lavender, pink and turquoise to share that magic.  We think they’ll be beautiful and festive with sparkling champagne sitting atop them!

Molly’s Sketchbook: New Year’s Eve Coasters | Purl Soho

Each coaster is pieced like a quilt square, with two half square triangles, one dark grey, and one lighter color. The resulting simple, graphic design lends itself to so many pretty display options that are a lot of fun to play with.  After they were done I spent a lot of time just arranging them in different patterns.  It’s so amazing how many shapes simple triangles can make!

Molly’s Sketchbook: New Year’s Eve Coasters | Purl Soho

Designed by Purl Soho designer, Molly Schnick. Click here to see even more of Molly’s work!

Materials

Molly’s Sketchbook: New Year’s Eve Coasters | Purl Soho

To make a set of twenty-four coasters:

Dark Fabrics:

  • 1/4-yard of Kokka Linen in Grey. (This particular fabric is no longer available, but please check out all of our current linen fabrics for some great alternatives!)
  • 1/4-yard of Carolina Chambray in Black. (This particular fabric is no longer available, but please check out all of our current solid fabrics for some great alternatives!)

Light Fabrics:

  • 1/4- yard of Sheer Linen in Sea Green
  • 1/4- yard of Duo Woven Linen in Pink
  • 1/4-yard of Lecien Dyed Stripes Black (This particular fabric is no longer available, but please check out all of our current striped fabrics for some great alternatives!)
  • 1/4-yard of Lecien Dyed Stripes Purple (This particular fabric is no longer available, but please check out all of our current striped fabrics for some great alternatives!)
  • 1/4-yard of Lecien Small Stripes Grey (This particular fabric is no longer available, but please check out all of our current striped fabrics for some great alternatives!)
  • 1/4-yard of Lecien Black on White dots- Small

Felt Backing Fabrics:

  • 1/2-yard of Wool Felt, in a color to match your fabrics.  I used a 1/4-yard of Light Grey and 1/4-yard of Steel, but Ecru, Sky, or Black would also be nice.
  • A large spool of grey sewing thread, color 9240

Size

4-inches square

Pattern

Cutting

Molly’s Sketchbook: New Year’s Eve Coasters | Purl Soho

Cut all of your fabrics before you begin sewing:

  • Cut six 5 5/8-inch squares from each of the two Dark Fabrics.
  • Cut two 5 5/8-inch squares from each of the Light Fabrics.
  • Cut twenty-four 5 1/8-inch squares from the Backing Felt

To make this project go swiftly you will probably want to sew the coasters in an assembly line fashion but make the first one on it’s own so that you can make sure you’re doing everything correctly.

Sewing the Triangles

Molly’s Sketchbook: New Year’s Eve Coasters | Purl Soho

Place a light square on top of a dark square right sides together so their sides line up exactly.

Using a pencil or fabric marker, mark a line diagonally across the middle of the square. Then mark a line 1/4-inch to the right of the middle marking and another a 1/4-inch to the left of the marking as shown above.

Pin the squares in place inside their right and left hand corners.

Molly’s Sketchbook: New Year’s Eve Coasters | Purl Soho

Sew across the right and left markings and cut the piece apart along the center marked line.

Molly’s Sketchbook: New Year’s Eve Coasters | Purl Soho

Press the resulting two pieces open with the seam pressed towards the dark side to form two squares consisting of a dark and a light triangle.

Snip off the corners so that you have a neat square as shown in the bottom of the photo above.

Sewing the Coasters

Molly’s Sketchbook: New Year’s Eve Coasters | Purl Soho

Pin the dark/ light square to a Backing Felt Square, right sides together.

Molly’s Sketchbook: New Year’s Eve Coasters | Purl Soho

Sew them together with a 3/8-inch seam allowance across three sides only, leaving one side completely unsewn.  Snip off the corners.

Molly’s Sketchbook: New Year’s Eve Coasters | Purl Soho

Turn the coaster right sides out and press it flat making sure to poke out the corners.

Turn the unsewn edge of both the fabric and the felt inside of itself 3/8-inch to hide the raw edges. Pin it closed.

Molly’s Sketchbook: New Year’s Eve Coasters | Purl Soho

Using your sewing machine’s walking foot, top stitch around the entire coaster with a 1/8-inch seam allowance, thus closing the open side.

Molly’s Sketchbook: New Year’s Eve Coasters | Purl Soho

Repeat these steps for the remaining fabrics using a different dark fabric for each of the light fabric squares so that each light fabric will eventually yield two Kokka Grey Linen coasters and two Carolina Chambray Coasters.

Happy New Year! –Molly