Have you heard of a coffee cup cozy? It’s an adorable name for a glamorous coffee cup sleeve. Often used to protect your fingertips from the hot beverage take out cup.
Today I will show you how to make a felt coffee cozy for either cups from home or a take-out cup. As the weather gets chilly that means ice skating and winter sports (or standing still watching other people do winter sports tee hee…) that will have you warming up with a nice hot chocolate, tea or coffee. You need a coffee cozy to keep the hot inside and protect your hands. They look cute too!
You will need:
- felt (3 inch strip plus scraps for the applique)
- scissors
- measuring tape or ruler
- take away coffee cup
- needle and thread or sewing machine
Every cup is different so I recommend that you start by cutting a strip of fleece 3 inches wide and wrap it around your cup. Pin your felt in place to gauge the size you will need.
My favorite take away cup is a Grande Decaf Coffee from Starbucks (with cream and sugar and cinnamon and chocolate sprinkled on top…mmmm). That is also the size of the cups that they made into reusable plastic cups. Yeah! For my friends who live near Tim Horton’s, it fits their medium cups.
Read on to see details to make it this size.
Measure your felt and cut a piece 9 inches long and 3 inches wide. (23cms by 7.5cms) Fold the strip of felt in half.
Wrap the strip of fabric around the cup to see how it fits. Trim a small amount of felt on an angle to adjust for the shape of the cup.
Hand sew or machine sew the edge. Stitch close to the edge…approx. 1/4 inch (or 1/2cm). Fortunately, felt does stretch a bit so if it fits snuggly at first, it will soon be fitting comfortably.
Making the Flower Applique
Sorry there is no pattern made for this. I “eyeball” most of the time instead of using patterns. Sometimes that makes my project a bit crooked but I don’t want it to look like its a perfect cookie cutter project that you can buy at Walmart.
So every project is an original!
Cut 2 long strips with rounded corners. I used 3 shades of pink. The darkest is for behind the flower and cut into the shape of two leaves. The lightest pink is what I put for the middle of the flower. Cut 3/4 of an inch wide by 9 inches long. The centre pink was 1 1/4 inches by 8 inches. If you would like it to be fuller add another inch or two in the length to this piece.
If you are going to add beads to the edges – do it first. Using seed beads add a bead to each stitch as the needle is up on the right side of the felt. Its so easy, we should sew beads onto everything! I added beads to the centre piece and the outside layer but left the middle layer without beads.
To begin putting the flower together. Slide the needle through the felt with a loose baste stitch. Gently pull the thread at the end to begin gathering.
As the final step I put the flower together and sew them in pace. Then attached the entire flower to the sleeve.
OR
You could put the flower together by sewing the layers directly onto the sleeve. Which ever makes more sense to you.
TA DA! Don’t you just want to show it off.
Felt is so easy to work with it will get your creative juices flowing! Now that you see how easy it is you will be designing more for a friend who loves dogs and another flower one for the babysitter, the mailman, workmates….spreading them all over the kitchen table like me making more….and more….
…or is it just me who does this?
This flower is simply just stacking circles. If you don’t want to sew you could glue it on.
This one is nice for the autumn. I did a few stitches on this seam of this one in green and put a button on as the centre.
The apple coffee cozy would be great for a teacher gift! If the kids did their own hand sewing I think the teacher would love the personal touch of a child’s efforts to stitch it. Ask your kiddos if their teacher likes coffee and put a gift card with it. I read an article about giving teacher gifts and it is the hand written cards of thanks from the child that really touch their hearts.
What about a sweet little bird. I had put some birds just like these on the knees of my daughters pants-to cover a hole. I’ll put the link below.
I hope you get a chance to make a coffee cozy! With felt costing around a dollar a piece you could make 3 from one piece and then personalize it with your scrap pieces. Now that is an inexpensive gift!
Felt is so easy to work with. Get your kids learning some hand sewing skills and give gifts they feel proud to give!
Here are a few more projects that we have tried to make with FELT!
Sew a Super Easy to Make Felt Crown – Add to your dress up clothes!