Holiday Ideas - Day Eighteen - Make Coasters and Placemats

I like using placemats and coasters to protect my table from spills and coffee rings. Right now I am working on some coasters for a Christmas gift and hope to get the placemats done too. The material I am stitching on is a bit unusual. You know how we stitchers joke about seeing everything as a potential Cross Stitch surface? Well, I was purchasing drawer liner paper one day and I noticed that Duck Select Easy Liner had a uniformly square weave. So, of course, I purchased that brand for lining the kitchen drawers and I also got some yarn to stitch with because I did not want to use mass quantities of my embroidery floss.

My projects is going well. I am using a plastic needle and I have had no problems stitching on the liner which has six squares to the inch. It is washable and pretty tough - my sister used the same stuff under her son's car seat to protect the seat from crumbs and ickys.

A more traditional placemat and coaster material would be vinyl Aida, but if you want to try the shelf liner, be sure to get the SELECT liner. The other grades of shelf liner have a different weave.

Use Christmas motifs or match a friend's kitchen decor and whip up some simple coasters and placemats today.