Suzuko Koseki

I have been extremely fortunate to be included in a special project for Japanese fabric designer and author, Suzuko Koseki. Ayumi over at Pink Penguin first mentioned her idea for this project in this post. Basically, a group of 18 crafters from 8 different countries are each making one 4.5" square coaster to be presented as a gift to Suzuko Koseki at the Tokyo Quilt Festival.

We were each assigned a letter or symbol to incorporate into our coaster and I got a heart. Here's my contribution:

This was so much fun to work on and now I want to make a set of coasters for myself in this same manner!

Here's the back, made with scraps from the front heart:

And a detail of the hand stitching and teeny tiny raw edge applique scraps on the back:

Each of the tiny squares is only half an inch across. I made a little quilt sandwich of the coaster top, some warm and natural batting, and the coaster back. The edges were left raw to echo the raw edges on the applique pieces and it is my hope that they will fray a little bit and soften over time.

You can see some more of the front detail here:

This was such a fun project to be involved with and I thank Ayumi for letting me be a small part of it. You can see more of what everyone's working on by checking out the flickr group here.