Do you need your own 'Snowman' water bottle cover?

In case you feel like making a cover for your water bottle, this is how I made the snowman ones recently.

Things you need:

• Water bottle
• Fleece background fabric - I had some tartan printed fleece
• White fleece for the snowman head and body
• black homespun for the hat
• zipper - 30cm chunky or whatever you have.
• ribbon for the neck and hat trim
• orange fabric offcut for the nose
• 2 buttons for the eyes
• 3 buttons for the shirt
• Heart button (even a snowman likes to have a heart)
• sewing machine, white, orange and black cotton, overlocker

This is how I made mine:

 

Cut the hanging top off your water bottle.

Trace around water bottle, leaving 3/4" for seam and space to put filled bottle into the cover.

For the back, fold front piece in half and cut out 2 halves, leaving a 1/2" seam at centre of back.

(if you're using checks, you may want to spend the time matching the checks as you cut out the pieces so that they match up on the finished cover - painful I know!!! - but I had to!!) 

Now for the snowman - find 2 'things' that you can trace around for the head and body.

I used a knitting frame

and a jug

Trace around the top of your front cover to get the shape for your hat.

Cut out an orange triangle nose.

Iron visoflix (double-sided iron-on interfacing) onto the back of each snowman piece.

Position all pieces on the front of your water bottle cover.  Iron in place.

Machine each piece in place, using a decorative blanket stitch around the edges.

Add features to snowman - eyes, shirt buttons, scarf, heart and hat trim.

Join back pieces together with zipper (my zipper was shorter, so I closed part of the back seam first)

Place finished front against back, right sides facing.

Sew pieces together 1/2" in from cut edge.  Overlock seam edge to neaten.

Turn through and push out edges.  Press.

Part fill water bottle with warm water (not boiling) and slip into finished cover.

Enjoy!  

But beware - they can become addictive and multiply!

The babushka one is a smaller water bottle with a fleece and cotton fabric cover, and uses an iron-on face transfer.  The girls' faces are also transfers made using photos.

If you would like to try patchwork or other appliqué covers, check out the pattern Robyn has just released through Craftsy.  She has included lots of ideas for days of creative fun.  

Christmas In July 2015

Do you celebrate 'Christmas in July'?

I have a few times, and always enjoy preparing 'extra' gifts for my grandchildren and having a hot family meal at a time when everyone is hungry and not rushing on to another family function.

This year as I prepared for our family's gathering, I also prepared a gift for a 'new' friend through Cheryll's Christmas in July.  This was the parcel that I sent to Jan:

I included a tree wall hanging, a snowman hot water bottle cover, santa and his tired elf mug rugs and some Christmas sweets.  They were wrapped in Christmas paper and bubble wrap, then placed in a mailing bag for their trip to Jan in Victoria.

Yesterday, I got to open my gift from Anna and put her gifts on display as part of out family dinner.  Anna sent me:

A delightful wall hanging saying 'all hearts come home for Christmas' - it greeted my family at the front door yesterday.

A very creative reindeer who held up the decorations and entertained our Santas and snowman.

This lovely hand towel that was very useful in the kitchen.  There were also some decorations and sweets to be enjoyed.  And I'll be drinking the hot chocolate very soon.

Our children brought the afternoon tea and gingerbread houses for the granddaughters to decorate - and what a lovely job they did:

Then we sat down to a Size 50 turkey roast dinner for 13, followed by apple crumble and custard dessert (my family don't like traditional pudding) and to my surprise there were very little leftovers.

And for the grandchildren, this year I made them each a new fleece outfit - coats and pinafores / trousers for the girls and pants, sweater and vest for our grandson.

.....and because I had so much fun making my first water bottle cover, the girls received their own water battle and cover to match their outfits.

Well this Nanna is feeling a bit weary.  Think I will have a restful afternoon before I tackle another busy week.  But I have lots of lovely memories to reminisce over .......

Don't you love fabric giveaways.

Recently I entered a fabric giveaway through 'Sew Delicious' .... 

and to my surprise these fabrics arrived in our mailbox.

The Giveaway asked what you would make with them and ... surprise, surprise .... I said bags.

So that's what I did:

The tomato soup had to be a shopping bag - the back is black as a fat quarter only has enough fabric for the front, 2 handles and a pocket/decorative strip.

This one is also a shopping bag - they'll be useful now we seem to be shopping at Aldi - a good size for the quick packing I need to do!

An extra button has made it easy to fold up to put into my handbag.

With my namesake's fabric, I have another knitting project bag.  I'm about to start Miss M's Kina.

How many people can say the fabric came with their name already all over it.

The swimmers had to be a towel bag for my next holiday - I joined the straps into one long strap for this bag.

This fabric called out to be a shoe bag - again useful for my next holiday.

I had enough left for a small zippered purse - this was lined with plastic - offcuts from table covers for mainly music - to make it waterproof.  It could hold glasses and hearing aides while we swim.

Not to leave out my grandchildren, I thought this made lovely day bags - 2 from a fat quarter - and big enough for a snack bag on an outing.

And the final piece is cut into 5" squares ready for a picnic rug for the grandchildren - I've put other fabrics with them, ready for another day of sewing.

Thanks Roslyn for 2 days of smiles and enjoyment as I made these up.  

Friday Night with Friends - July

I don't know about your place, but Friday night was pretty cold here.  I hope the caravan was somewhere a bit warmer Cheryll.

Tonight I finished the next Kina cardigan - this time in a size 8 for Miss A.  She chose the wool colour - Bendigo Classic Seaquest.

Isn't it lovely to use the 200g balls - only one join in the whole project.  Yay!!

Then I started the last item for Christmas in July Swap

Not long until our parcels will be on there way.

Hope your hands were kept busy and that you had as much enjoyment as I did.