so very cozy...

Yesterday I showed a glimpse of this...well...a version of this...and today here it is:



A tea cozy!

In the RVA Autumn class Rachel had a tea cozy project. This is that, but I made mine differently, so I'm sharing my tea cozy construction plan with you. I suppose there are only so many ways you can make one, and so none of them are new...but this one was un-researched. Except for consultation with my mother.





First off, I stitched and appliqued the gingerbread house. I drew up this pattern after looking for something that I liked. There was a vintage Hansel and Gretel pattern that came close, but this worked out better for adding felt. It's not perfect (which I'm cool with), but if you'd like it, you can grab it from Flickr.



Then I cut out the pieces. I used an existing cozy from home as the basis for my pattern. It's sort of a basic shape, you just have to make sure that it's large enough for your tea pot. Since this is for a gift (for Nanny!), I went just a bit larger than the minimum so that it would accommodate a large tea pot. The one I showed glimpses of yesterday is smaller to fit my little sister's toy tea pot.

There are two pieces of my outer fabric, two of the lining, and two pieces of cotton batting.



With the pieces layered in this order: batting, outer fabric, lining (face down), I stitched straight across the bottom of both sets.



Then I trimmed the batting close to the stitches, flipped the lining to the back, and pressed both of them.



Pin the two sides with lining to lining. Make sure that your ends match up really good. Mine shifted just a bit, and I've opted to live with it. You may be more picky than I am. Anyway...stitch around the top of your cozy. You're almost done!



Trim around your seam so that your rough raw edges are now smooth raw edges.



All done!

Even with all my sewing machine issues, this was simple. So simple, that I wish I had decided to make these for everyone on my list. Even my brother. Hey, he could wear it as a hat!