It's Sooo Cozy!

I planned the projects for this embroidery club year back in May and June. I find that if the ideas are planned out on paper, then when it's time to actually make the project and create the designs – it's a breeze. Well not always. It worked well for the first 5 projects, but I am so struggling this month. I had this fabulous travel bag idea all planned out. It looked good in May, and now it's just not working at all. Not sure why. I think the embroidery designs don't quite fit the project idea. So on to my backup idea - A Tea Cozy. And here it is, ready for download. Lots of stuff this month. So go through the download file carefully.

Of course a tea cozy by itself just didn't seem complete, so I did a couple of different cup cozies. I know we've done cup cozies before, but these are for real cups, not the styrofoam or paper kind. I purchased these funky cups, without handles, from IKEA last month. They look great. I was so happy I purchased them, until of course I made some tea. It's pretty hard to carry a hot cup without a handle. Enter the cup cozy idea. These cozies have a bottom, so the handle-less cups sit right inside the cozy. You don't even need a coaster. I love these. Now, whether you love them or not, is another matter. Hope you do. If you don't have handle-less cups, I did make cup cozies for regular cups as well. Have fun.

 By the way - we also included instructions for the label.

Patricia from Sault Ste Marie, who tests the projects for me, wrote:

I really enjoyed this project and when I showed it at January's class my ladies were quite impressed and they all want to do it. I used my endless hoop and alternated between the first two designs and it worked great. For the second border I put the designs into my mega hoop using 4D and that worked really well too, but I think I will encourage the endless hoop for class and mention the idea of using the software to make one hooping with the mega hoop and taking out the endless marking stitches (which I forgot to do).

I love the idea of a trivet and I think I am going to use my elastic foot and make a circular trivet using some of my tea cozy fabric and the pattern and instructions from November's Club. I may even cut out a morning glory from your design and use encore to make a little circle of flowers to go on the trivet. :-) What do you think--is that legal?? You mention the clear stitch in the ditch foot, but I love the clear piping foot because you can so easily see whether your piping is in the groove.