Quilting & Learning - What a Combo!: velcro

Monday, November 11, 2019

Making quilted cup sleeves

It's hard to believe that November is here! The days are getting wetter, colder and shorter. I know that winter is important but it sure would be nice to jump from fall to spring (my two favourite seasons).

Quilted cup sleeves

Coffee Cat quilted
cup sleeve

While I was cleaning my quilting supplies, I found a small bag of fabric and batting already cut to make quilted cup sleeves. I had made three or four of them a few years ago and I guess I was preparing to make more but it never happened. I also did a search on my blog and didn't find any posts on cup sleeves so I might as well show you all of the ones I've made so far (or those that I still have) 😊

These are great for using up medium-sized scraps of fabric and batting. You can even use two different fabrics - one for each side, or piece fabric together for a really scrappy look.

I had been saving some coffee cat fabric just for this project. Since I only had enough to make two cup sleeves (not even a fat quarter), the fabric must have been given to me.

Another Coffee Cat quilted cup sleeve

Christmas cup sleeve

Christmas fabric quilted cup sleeve

Owl cup sleeve

Fancy fabric cup sleeve

Flannel Owl fabric cup sleeve

Cup sleeve using some lovely
swirling flowers fabric

Pooh Bear cup sleeve

My favourite Pooh Bear fabric makes
a lovely cup sleeve

Pooh Bear fabric quilted
cup sleeve

As you probably noticed, I didn't have any disposable coffee cups for my photo shoot. The cup sleeves barely go around my coffee thermos but it does make an elegant prop :-)

What I learned

I remember that my first cup sleeves were a little tight around the cups, so I made these using slightly longer Velcro pieces.
There are lots of tutorials on the internet for making fancy cup sleeves but I just used a cardboard cup sleeve as a pattern. I made it longer so that it would overlap to add Velcro.
You may want to check the direction of your fabric to see if this works - the Christmas birds would look much better if there weren't hanging on to the branch for dear life! 😊
Another tip - darker fabrics hide the coffee stains best, but these are reversible so they will last twice as long between washes.
These are really great but not terribly practical since I never have one on me when I'm picking up coffee! I'm now leaving one in my office so that when I think about it, I bring it down when I buy a mid-morning coffee. Sure I could keep one in my purse, but soon I'll need a suitcase for all of the stuff that I carry in my purse....just in case!
I will put a couple of them in the glove compartment since it could be useful if I think of bringing them in with me. BTW, I googled glove compartment to see if there was a more modern name for it, but it still seems to be called a glove box or compartment, from when driving gloves were used.
They also make cute little gifts!

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