Drink Cup Cozy

I can't believe how much time has gone by between my posts! It's been that way all year too. I don't even know why. I guess that I just get too busy. The kids all have their things going on which keeps me crazy busy too. It seems that by the time I get a few extra minutes when I could be updating my blog, I'm just too tired to do anything more. lol

But, I have actually been getting things done.

For example,

I used some of my scraps to make a cup cozy.

I decided on fabrics in red since it's my favorite color.

I just cut strips of different sizes depending on what I had to work with. Then I just stitched them together in straight lines.

You can see that one of my pieces ended up being a little shorter than the others. I hate it when it becomes obvious that I wasn't paying as close attention as I should have been.

I used one of the paper holders that I got from a local coffee shop as my guide. But, does the coffee in the cup that it came around counts as a 'research' expense or 'supplies'?

Anyway, I traced that on the back side of my piece.

Then, I cut it out about 1/4 inch bigger than the lines I had drawn.

After I had that piece, I cut out a piece of batting, and a piece from a coordinating fabric. I like the whole optical illusion that it creates to lay these pieces out like this. They're all the same size, but it certainly doesn't look like it.

 Then I layered them like you see here. My single piece with the right side facing me, my stripped piece face down on the single piece, and then my batting on top of that.

I stitched a quarter of an inch from the edges and then trimmed things as close as I could, leaving an opening on one end. That opening allowed me to turn my piece right side out and left a place for me to sew my elastic loop to.

Here's the turned piece...

I put a little loop of elastic in the opening on the one end, folded my pieces to the inside, and then top stitched around the entire piece.

I put two heart-shaped buttons on the end opposite from my elastic loop. I decide to use two buttons so that I could adjust the fit if I needed to.

Ta-Dah! It's all done!!

I really like the way it turned out. I like things that feel homey and this does to me.

Now if only I could remember to take it with me when my husband and I go to that coffee shop on our Sunday morning dates.

Mug set

I made the mug mat for this set quite some time ago. It's part of a craft pay-it-forward that I decided to participate in at the beginning of the year. But after I got the mat finished I didn't know what else to make to go with it.

Why it took me so long to think of making a cozy with more fabric from that collection, I may never know. I guess things just come to me sloooowwwwly sometimes. lol I mean, it's not like I haven't read a lot of blogs with lots of people making these. It just didn't click for me.

But once it did finally click, it only took about 30 minutes to knock this one out.

 I love this button. It's from a tin of really old buttons from an estate sale that a friend of mine bought for me.

I didn't have any coordinating elastic so I dug around a little. I had these little strips that I had cut from an old pair of my girls' tights (I use them to twist their hair up to curl it) and decided it would be perfect. It's got plenty of stretch but is nice and soft too.

Here's the mat, again.

 And the set together.

I'm putting it in the mail today. I hope she likes it!!