Thanks 925! It's the contrasting thread that does it.

these look great! nice job!

Oh, I see... pin the wrong sides together, with the right sides showing.

Well...you're pinning the wrong sides together so your right sides show. If you wanted your coaster to have a 'wrong' side, you could make it have one, but I'm not sure why you would. Also, the suede has a bit of grip-tion, which keeps your coaster stay put, so that's another reason to have two suede-y sides. If you have fancy stitches on your machine, the machine probably came with an appropriate foot to sew some--if not all--of them. The high-end machines, like my Bernina, are BIG on special feet for special stitches. But, now that I think about it, I use the #1 foot that's in the pic for most of my fancy stitches. That includes simple zig-zag to foo-foo flower and leaf chains too.