Sew cosy

Cafetiere Cosies

It's still snowing here, and what could be nicer than curling up in front of a log burning stove with a piping hot cup of coffee?  

......So here are a couple of cafetiere cosies to share with you.  The gorgeous 'antique' tray you can see in the picture was made by my very talented 12 year old son at a B&Q 'Kid's Can Do It' class.  Unbelievably, he started with some blank MDF sheets and by the end of the class had created this fantastic tray!  I love the shaped handles which he cut out with a spade drill-bit and jigsaw.

Once we got it home he and I 'aged' it with regular emulsion paint and then stamped on the lovely flourishes, once again using some left over emulsion paint.  As a final touch, he ran a silver marker pen around the edges to give it a 'gilt' effect before giving the whole thing a coat of clear varnish.

Didn't he do a wonderful job?

My poor cosies aren't quite sure if they deserve to be standing on such a beautiful work of art!

The other much loved item in the pictures is our stove.  We have completed a number of improvement projects in the house, but without doubt this is our favourite.  If you are contemplating installing one, GO FOR IT!  Ours was put in 4 or 5 years ago and we have never yet had to purchase any logs for it.  We live in a fairly wooded area and every year trees come down.  Once this happens it takes a team of men at least a day to chainsaw the tree into smaller lengths to be taken away.  I make it my mission to walk past a fallen tree everyday until the cutting team arrives.  Then a few smiles, (and the offer of some bottles of beer to take away!) and, hey presto, a drive full of logs!  It is then simply a matter of stacking them under cover in our wood-store for a couple of years whilst they 'season'.

In this age of rising fuel prices it is great to get heat for free!  It is also worth noting that statistics suggest up to 90% of waste wood in the UK ends up in landfill sites and yet, if burnt, wood counts as 'carbon neutral' because the oxygen it produces whilst growing is at least equal to the CO2 produced when burnt.  So all that time when the Mr Larkin, the children and I jump into skips to pull out wood we're not being mean, it's us saving the planet........okay and we're cheap-skates too!

Anyway, back to the cosies, here's a close up;

I used some grey striped cotton cut from an old pair of curtains to make the main body of the cosy.  The insulation was provided by the 100% wool backing which started life as a jumper before being 'felted' in my washing machine on a 'boil' cycle  (All of my materials come from either charity/thrift shops or car-boot sales).

The design is a mixture of raw edge applique and free motion embroidery.

Here is picture of the large cosy laid out flat to show the whole design; 

It is a little curled at the bottom as I had just taken it off the cafetiere and forget to iron it for the picture...Oopps!

The fastenings are simply two hair elastics which hook around the buttons.  I think this looks much better than using regular elastic and those hair bands are made to last!  The buttons came from a box passed down to me from my Mum and they came to her from either her own mother or grandmother.  They are at least 50-80 years old!

Once I have got the hang of blogging I might progress to writing a tutorial as........

.....in the sales last week I got........

 this coffee set and it was 75% off!  I'm going to slip off the little red cover and change it for one of my own, and if I remember to take photos along the way that tutorial might happen!