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Saturday, November 20, 2010

Simple coffee cozy

Starbucks was out of sleeves the other day, so they had to double up the cup. I had seen tutorials for coffee cozies before, and decided to make some to keep in the cars. Yes, I realize how ri.dic.u.lous that makes me sound, but what else am I going to do with them? Plus, I'm not sure, but I think it was the huzz's idea.
If you want to make your own coffee cozy, or use it around a glass to hold a cold drink, here are the instructions. Or just ask me to make you one. I'd love the excuse.

1. Measure around the mug, glass, or cup you want and make a template out of paper until you're happy with the size. Or, walk across the street to the other Starbucks that's not out of sleeves and grab one out of the basket.

2. Felt was my fabric of choice. It's stiff, easy to cut, and looks warm and wintry. I had leftover squares of felt that were embossed to look like leather -- both brown western and black crocodile that I L-O-V-E. (No pic.)

3. Trace around the template. You'll actually want to shoot a little wider and longer than an actual template, I realized, as the felt is thick enough to take away some of the size when turned inside out.

4. Sew the right sides together, 3/4 of the way around.

5. Turn it inside out and hand sew the last strip closed. I don't know how you like to hand sew a hidden stitch, but this is the kind that works for me. I tried to draw a diagram in for you, which is crude but gets the point across. When you do it like this, and do it uniformly (unlike my picture) you get a nice closed edge that doesn't look too different than your machine-sewn edges.
6. On two of them I created a snap closure so that they could be used on mugs with handles. For the third, I just sewed it closed with a button that's both functional and fashionable, don't you think? This one can just slide up on cups without a handle. Cold beer, hot coffee... the options are endless!
I took these pics on my iPhone, so they're not super clear and you can't see the pretty embossing on the felt. C'est la vie!

1 comment:

EssentialEm said...

AWESOME!!! AND - I think I might be crocheting some of these... funny that we are both crafting the SAME THING!!

Can't wait to see you at the coma .. er.. cookie party!