How to Make Orange Slice Felt Coasters

I love working with felt. It's a really easy fabric to work with and it's something you can use to make really easy and quick projects. So I have felt orange slice coasters. They're little coasters that look like orange slices, but you can obviously make them out of any color. I have four sets of four coasters in four different colors, and I made these all in a couple hours. So they really come together pretty quick and easy and I'm gonna show you how to do that. So move all these outta the way. And you really just need a piece of white craft felt and whatever color you wanna make them out of. And I just used one sheet of each to make my set of four coasters. And I just need to cut some circles. And I didn't want to try and draw my circle. I thought it would be way easier to just trace a cup. So I went and just found any size cup. It can be the cup you're going to use your coasters for. It can be a coffee cup, anything that has a circle. And I just laid it on my felt and I traced it. And I am not worried about the type of pen I'm using or if it's removable or anything like that. I just wanna make a line that I can see to cut. So then, I'm just gonna take my scissors and I'm going to cut out my circle. And what I wanna do is, since I have white felt and I just used a blue pen, I wanna try and cut off that ink. So I'm coming around my circle and making it so once I have my finished circle that I've cut, I don't see any of my ink. So here I have my blue ink and I've cut it off and that's my circle. So you need to cut three circles. You have a larger main color circle, a medium white one, and then we have an even smaller back to your main color. Now you can either go find three different cups or you can cut your big one, and then you can actually cut a second big one out of your white and lay it on there and then just trim it a little bit. These don't have to be perfect. These are just fun little coasters you're making. Don't worry about your circles being perfect. So I just trimmed my next circle down and then trimmed my next one down from there. So I have three different sizes. Now, this smallest circle is actually going to be cut into our little pieces that make up our sort of wedges of our orange. So all I did was draw lines across it. And you don't even have to draw the lines. If you just want to cut it in half, then in half again, and half again, you can do that as well. So I'm just cutting, again, my circle in half, cutting that section in half, and cutting that section once again in half. And I'm just going to do that until I have enough little sections to make up my orange slice. And you'll need six of these little pieces for each coaster. So that actually gives you eight, so you'll have more than you need, but if you're gonna make a set of 'em, you can use it on your next one. So now I'm gonna take my little pieces and just arrange them on my coaster. And I'm gonna start by going across from each other and then I will sort of evenly space two little guys in here and put two more over here. And now you can see here on this one, if you look really close, this is the one I drew my lines. I didn't just free cut it, so you can see I still have a little bit of pen mark on that. I just wanna make sure that that goes to the back. So if you do still see any of your pen marks, just put 'em to the back and then you won't have to worry about 'em at all. And there's my little orange slice. And so I'm gonna sew these, and it's a lotta little pieces. Felt does generally sort of stick to itself, so you don't always have to pin. But since we do have such little pieces, I am going to put pins in. And I'm actually gonna put one little pin into each little segment of our slice here. And then I'm gonna take it over and I'm gonna sew it. Now you have several different options when you sew. I like to use a blanket stitch and I'm gonna sew all the way around the edge, and I'm gonna use white thread. And I think that just looks kinda cute. You can see a little bit of the stitching and I think it just adds to the project. You can decide that you wanna do a straight stitch really close to the edge all the way around, or maybe you're on your way to a barbecue and you have to bring a gift or something and you want this really quick project. You can make this a no-sew project. You could get kids involved and cut 'em out and use a little bit of glue and actually just glue them on. If you are gonna use these maybe a lot during the summer and you think you might need to wash them, I would recommend sewing them down versus gluing them, just so they do hold up pretty good to use. So now it's all pinned and I'm ready to stitch it. So I have my machine set for just a standard blanket stitch and I'm going to start by stitching one of my little segments down in place. And so all I'm gonna do is go all the way around the outside edge with this blanket stitch. Now, this is a pre-programmed stitch on my machine and yours might be a little different, but in general, your machine will do several straight stitches and then it will take a bite over into the actual shape that's being blanket stitched down. So in my case, it's gonna do three straight stitches and then on the fourth stitch, it's gonna go over into that fabric. So while I'm doing this, I actually like to count my stitches so I know when it's going to move over, and I also know when I can turn the corner. So right now, I have done three straight stitches and I'm right on the edge of my shape and I need to turn that corner. So I know that I wanna just turn part of the way so my stitch onto my actual fabric will actually catch that colored fabric versus going off of the edge. So whatever your blanket stitch is, if it does three stitches, four stitches, maybe even only two stitches, just sort of know where you're at the entire time. That way, it can help you as you're going all the way around your shape. So I'm coming down to the middle and do the same thing, and I'm gonna pivot and come all the way up this other side like so. Again, sort of counting as I go. And I like to use white thread, again. I think it looks kinda cute to see the little stitches of white thread on the color, and it also blends in really nicely to my background fabric is, or my background felt is this white felt. So if I'm off a little bit on the stitches, the white is hidden in the white and also, felt just hides stitches very, very good. So you aren't going to see anything if you get a little off. Did a couple backstitches. I'm done with that and I'll take it off and show you what this one looks like. Clip all my little threads. And you can see I have my little segment all stitched in place. And that's all you have to do. You're gonna go around and you're gonna stitch all of your little segments in place, and then you're gonna go around the outside edge of the white and stitch that down also, just so this little edge doesn't get caught on anything and isn't stuck up anywhere. And then you'll have your finished project. You can see it's just that easy to make and they go together really quick. The longest part is actually just cutting out all your pieces. If you wanted to take another piece of say white or another of the same color and put a back on it and then do some sort of zigzag around the edge to secure because you didn't wanna see all the stitching, you could do that. But it is the back of the coaster. I'm not real worried about seeing that or not, so I like it just like that. And in no time, you can go get a bunch of different colors of felt, come home, cut 'em out, sit down and in an afternoon, you've got all sorts of coasters to use at your next backyard barbecue or even just to bring some colors of summer inside to your kitchen. So I hope you give this a try. It's really quick and easy and lots of fun.