The question for me is not the circles.... there are so many things around the house that can be used. It's .... what method do you want to use to apply them to the fabric? If you don't want to applique, sewing circles can be a challenge. I use freezer paper,
1. take a good sized square of freezer paper and draw my circle in the middle. Cut out the circle.
2. Iron the circle to the back side of the fabric.... this will be the fabric around the circle.
3. Cut the center of the fabric away 1/2" away from the paper. Then snip the fabric close to the freezer paper.....
but not all the way to the paper to make tabs that can be folded under the paper.
4. Use a glue stick and glue the fabric tabs to the paper. Be careful that you don't get glue too close to the fold.
Glue can cause your needle to not stitch when you're ready to sew. Smooth the round edge. I take an old
magazine and lay the fabric with paper on it when I glue. Then, I can just throw away the magazine page and
have a fresh one for the next glue job.
5. Now you have a fabric circle that you can focus over a picture or whatever to center the fabric the way you like
it. Now glue the tabs of fabric and glue your circle over the selected fabric circle you want to make.
6. Carefully, lift the original fabric to expose the freezer paper and machine sew along the edge of the paper. You
are actually sewing the 2 fabrics together. Tear away the freezer paper and behold...... you have a perfect
circle.
I HOPE THIS MAKES SENSE.
I make large ovals or circles this way. You can't do squares or rectangles but it makes the most perfect circles you ever saw. For small circles, I iron the freezer paper to the back side of the fabric, hand sew a row of stitches about 1/8" away from the paper and draw it up tightly.
This is a baby quilt I've just gotten ready to quilt so there are a lot of pins in the picture. But, I made all the circles and ovals using the method I described.