Felted Wool Hot Water Bottle Cosies - Applique Fun!

Love Sewing Magazine September 2021

September's Love Sewing Magazine is now in the shops and features lots of gorgeous autumn projects including these pure wool hot water bottle cosies, designed by me!

Like the majority of my creations they're made from upcycled materials, in this case felted wool sweaters.  Producing your own luxurious pure wool felt is easy, as it actually just shrinking things! Any wool jumper marked 'Hand Wash' should felt but those labelled 'Washable' or 'Superwash' have been pre-treated and  therefore aren't suitable. I source my jumpers and scarves at our local charity shop, where they also put by for me any that have already been inadvertently shrunk!  Once you've found your chosen items simply chuck them in your washing machine on a hot (60° or above) programme.

As autumn is now fast approaching, I decided on a cute 'Woodland Critters' theme using natural toned wool and fabrics.  They would also make super Christmas presents, as each family member could have their own design and they'd look equally good stitched up in much more vibrant colours.

The most exciting part of the process is adding the machine stitched details, it really brings the appliques to life!  I usually just use a reduced length straight stitch and an 'open toe' foot but you can also drop your machine's feed dogs and then free motion embroider to your heart's content.  

 

As ever our cats couldn't bear to be left out of anything going on, however mundane.  I was going to get a couple of pictures of the full magazine spread to share but ended up thwarted by Digby who decided to give the pages a good chewing instead!  Luckily Lola is far more well behaved and was happy just to watch his daft shenanigans.

SewforSoul ~ Sewing World Magazine

Felted Wool Hot Water Bottle Cover ~ February 2015

February's Sewing World Magazine is in the shops now and features one of my repurposed sweater projects;

A hot water bottle cover with an adorable sleeping fox applique

The tutorial is really easy and as felted wool doesn't fray it needs only minimal finishing

The magazine is full of great makes including a lovely tartan cushion by Fiona over at Celtic Thistle Stitches.  

Happy Christmas - £25 Crafting Voucher Giveaway!

SewforSoul Magazine Feature and Giveaway!

Christmas is just six weeks away, which in creative tasking terms, is waaay too soon!  I now really ought to start thinking about some serious festive crafting and having an article published in Reloved Magazine's Christmas issue was just the thing to put me into a festive frame of mind!

Regular SewforSoul visitors will recognise the project from this blog post.

I based the adorable Father Christmas applique on this digital stamp by Cuddly Buddly.

Digital stamps are perfect for applique, as they're so easy to re-size and manipulate.  Cuddly Buddly have a huge selection and, as well as digital items, they also stock a wide range of physical crafting products for card making, scrapbooking, sewing, decoupage and painting to name but a few! 

If you haven't yet visited Cuddly Buddly, you've been missing out on a fantastic crafting experience and as it's 'nearly' Christmas I'm holding a giveaway for a lovely £25 gift certificate and, with over 12,000 items held in stock, they really do have something for everyone.

To be in with a chance of winning simply leave a comment on this post and then pop over to Bloglovin.com to start following SewforSoul.  The winner will be drawn at random on 1 December, just in time for a little Christmas shopping!

Good luck!

Appliqued Hot Water Bottle Cover

 Upcycled Wool Sweater

September's Cuddly Buddly Design Team Challenge is entitled 'Teenage Christmas' and it proved to be just the nudge I needed to start my festive stitching.  I decided to make an appliqued hot water bottle cover using a Benetton vintage cashmere sweater, which cost me just 20p 'ready felted' (shrunk!) from my local car boot sale;  

I then downloaded and resized this 'Santa Sitting' digi stamp so that his face filled the front of my cover and got stitching. 

Pure wool felt is bliss to sew with as it doesn't fray and feels super expensive.  It's also ridiculously easy to make - Simply throw a 'hand wash only' woollen jumper into your machine on a hot wash.  Heck, I've even sometimes created it by mistake!

For a complete cuteness overload, gently rouge dear old Father Christmas's cheeks with a red colouring pencil.

 The back of the case features a simple overlapping envelope closure, in the style of a pillow case.  

This was such an easy project to make but it looks looks and feels so much more expensive than the usual polyester 'knitted' covers that the shops are full of at Christmas.  I have written a simple step-by-step tutorial over at the Cuddly Buddly Blog and don't forget that 'Pound Stores' sell hot water bottles nice and cheaply should you want to make your own.

Digital stamps are perfect for applique and you could even make a matching card for a real 'Wow Factor'.  Just have a look at this stunning example;

It was made by the very talented Wendy over at Crazy4FlowersCards, her whole blog is full of fantastic creations and well worth a visit.

Happy Christmas!