The Birthday Boy Coasters

One of my most recent endeavors was a gift for my boyfriend for his birthday. He's a very difficult person to buy/make something for, because he has this horrible habit of losing everything. I've bought him countless items, clothes, movies (which have since migrated into my movie stash), art supplies,cologne, etc, etc, etc. Where is it all now? I couldn't even begin to speculate.

So this time around, I got smarter. "Honey, what would you like for your birthday?"

There's a long pause, followed by a shrug. "Would you be able to make, like, coasters? I need one for my desk at work. Can you do that?"

Of course, I inwardly scoff, Can I do that? Pffft, please.

Yet verbally I'm humble, "I think I can."

Then starts the real trouble because my brain starts spinning, thinking of all the interesting things I could do with these coasters. It should be themed! Football? Hmmmph, I don't know his favorite teams or players. What else does he like?

And then after scouring Ravelry, I have the "Ah hah!" moment.

Super Mario, the old school pixel versions would be so easy to chart!

To make things just a little easier, I crochet (Don't tell my knitting needles. They'd be outraged and jealous.) simple 3 1/2 - 4 inch squares. Then I cross stitched Super Mario, the old school pixelated characters onto the squares.

I completed these squares, four total and I as sit back and stare at them I realize...two of them are pretty freaking good and the other two are....well, not up to par.

Especially since I'm questioning my judgement already. Handmade gifts, to me at least, are nerve racking to make solely because I may think they're great but someone else is liable to look and wonder, "What is this frumpy crap?"

That phrase is my nightmare.

So I work hard, have these coasters made up and realize now I need to decide how to cover the crazy tangles and snares of my not so neat cross stitching on the underside of the coaster.

In my imagination I'm seeing my very clumsy man reaching for his Big Bang Theory 'Bazinga'  emblazoned mug while distractedly looking at a computer screen.  Already I see the downward trajectory of his quest for coffee. This coaster is going to slide right off.

My remedy was plastic shelf liner, courtesy of my local dollar store. I just cut up a strip the same width and double the height, so I could fold it over (to ensure that he will never see my messy cross stitch backside).
I do a quilt stitch (Thank you, Mom.) and use needle and thread to stitch it up. I don't think my first attempt before Mom intervened was a bad route to go, but the stitch she showed me took less time and had stronger results.

Then I am finished.

In the end, I love them. Well, two of them. But as I sat and stared at them, I wondered, "What will he see?"
I wait out the day until he opens it, I almost asked him to open it secretly, but in the end he was too excited for me to even ask! I had wrapped up his gift in cellophane, with coffee mugs, candies, and K-cups. It really did look like a raffle prize.
He knew he was getting coasters, but he had no idea they would look like this:

 He absolutely thought they were awesome! No one else said much of anything, but it didn't matter. He did. Done deal, worth the effort. Project success.

And just for show, here is what the back looked like:

I kept testing it, making sure it wouldn't slide, but it didn't budge. Perfect!