DIY Ombré Quilted Christmas Coasters

These DIY quilted Christmas coasters are a quick and easy holiday sewing project that will add beautiful pops of colour to your Christmas decorating! Plus they’re shaped like super fun Xmas ball ornaments, what’s not to love?!

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I realized last week that I haven’t done a sewing project post in forever. Even worse, I haven’t done a personal sewing project in ages either! I usually have at least one work-in-progress quilt on the go, but I’ve been really focused on felt projects instead I guess. I’ve been loading up the shop with new patterns!

So I was rounding up some modern Christmas sewing ideas for a new post and I thought I should create something new and original myself to add to the list. I settled on colourful Christmas ornament coasters!

These quilted Christmas coasters make a really great quick gift. You can make a whole set of these in an afternoon! Plus I think they’re fairly beginner-friendly in terms of sewing difficulty.

Unfortunately I can’t share what specific colours I used because I have no idea what they are. I have an extensive fabric scrap collection that I pulled them from. All I can say is that I love using non-traditional colours for Christmas!

You don’t have to make these ombré, I just loved how an ombré design gave the coasters a more modern look. I’m always looking for ways to make the Holiday season feel up to date. But I think these quilted Christmas coasters would look equally cute using strips of patterned fabric instead.

I love projects like this for using up bits of fabric and especially strips of batting that are leftover from larger projects. This is a solid scrap-busting DIY! Leftover pieces from jelly roll strips are the perfect width for these colour blocked coasters.

And if you’re looking for more Christmas content, click here, while all the sewing content lives here. 🙂

Ok, let’s sew!

Gather Materials

Here’s what you’ll need to make one quilted Christmas coaster:

Cotton Quilting Fabric – 5 shades of a similar colour in increasing saturation, cut into 5.5″ x 1.5″ pieces
Silver or Grey Fabric – 2″ x 2″
Backing Fabric – 6″ x 6″
Batting – 6″ x 6″
Fabric Scissors
Spring action snips (optional)
Straight Pins
Printed Pattern (grab it at the end of the post, no sign-up required!)

You can watch the following video on the xmas coaster assembly process, or keep scrolling for a photo description. My videography skills are still in the extreme amateur stage, but I’m trying!

How to Make Quilted Christmas Coasters

Cut the 5 pieces of fabric into 1.5″ x 5.5″ strips.
Cut the grey fabric into a 2″ x 2″ chunk.

Use a 1/4″ seam allowance and sew the strips together. Put the lightest shade at the top and the darkest shade at the bottom.

Stitch the grey piece centered at the top.

(I just used white thread for this whole project.)

Press all the seams open.

Pin the paper pattern to the pieced fabric, lining up the bottom of the ornament ‘top’ with the seam between the grey and lightest colour. Cut around.

Cut out a backing piece and a batting piece as well.

Colour Blocked Ornament Coasters

Place the fabrics right sides together, then layer the batting on top of the backing fabric and pin the 3 layers together. Use a 1/4″ seam allowance to sew around the ornament coaster, leaving approximately 2″ open at the bottom.

Before you flip the coaster right side out, snip into the corners, as close to the stitching as you dare. Also snip away little triangles of seam allowance to reduce the bulk.

This step is made so much easier by using spring loaded scissors like these fiskars because they give you more precision and control of the cuts. But they’re totally optional, an excellent pair of sewing scissors will work just as well. 🙂

Flip the coaster right side out.

You can use a straight pin to gently pull out the corners. Or tweezers or a chop stick to push them out instead.

Once you’ve got everything smoothed out, and the seam allowance from the opening is folded inwards, iron the coaster flat.

I found it really difficult to get the seam allowance at the opening to look perfect. I think that’s because it’s curved. So don’t give yourself a hard time over it. Do your best!

Now, topstitch around the whole coaster, as close to the edge as you can get.

DIY Modern Christmas Coasters

Now you can add a bit of quilting!

I did a large zig zag across one colour strip, then turned around and came back over it to create a kind of diamond pattern. I repeated that on a second strip.

I just eyeballed the pattern as I stitched, so it’s far from perfect or symmetrical, but I’m super happy with how it turned out! Plus I had zero interest in carefully marking out the quilting lines. lol. But if it bothers you, you can use a ruler and either an air soluble marker or a Hera Marker to draw out the lines.

Feel free to add as much or as little quilting as you’d like. Or use contrasting thread colours to really make the detailing pop. Let your creativity run wild!

And as a point of interest, you can omit the grey top and stitch the coasters in a circle if you don’t want them to be Christmas ball themed!

Look how cute these turned out!!

My boys gave me this mug last Christmas in appreciation for all the insane amount of work it takes for moms to produce that effortless “Christmas Magic” experience! 😀

I use the mug year round though because it is the PERFECT size for a bracing cup of tea. (I have a cup of Twinings Earl Grey every morning.)