Flora beaded coasters

Two coasters, each one strung as a flower from maple beads on waxed cotton cord. At 15 cm across they take a teapot or a serving jug as easily as a mug, and the beads are unstained maple, so the wood warms in tone the more you handle it.

Put them where something hot or wet meets a surface you’d rather not mark: the dining table, a wooden sideboard, the shelf beside the kettle. A pair is as much at home under a vase as under a glass, and handsome enough to leave out on the table between meals.

The studio is in South Africa, and it’s a small one: a single woman started it beading chandeliers for her own house, and as the orders came she trained the women who bead there now.

For a coaster they thread maple beads onto waxed cotton cord, work the rings that make the petals, and close them around a centre. Then they knot the cord and feed the ends back through the beads so nothing shows. The cord holds the flower on its own, so a coaster gives a little under your hand and settles back flat.

The maple is left unfinished, so two coasters out of one batch can sit a shade apart in colour.

Wipe with a dry cloth. Keep them out of the dishwasher and off a wet worktop: the cord holds the beads under tension and soaking loosens it. A damp cloth is fine for a spill, as long as you dry the wood afterwards.