We have just added some lovely ribbons to the website, I love using ribbons and trimmings so I decided to use them to decorate a Tea Cosy, this will make an excellent Christmas present for one of my friends.

I used the pack of Party Ribbons, they are very retro looking and will give the Tea Cosy a vintage look. I made a pattern on a piece of paper, a half circle to fit my 4 cup tea-pot, I chose a blue spotty fabric for the main piece and a pink spotty fabric for the lining, the wadding is quite thick (6 oz) I used a skinny quarter of each of the fabrics and the wadding.

You need 2 pieces of each, main fabric, lining and wadding, all the same size, except for the lining which I cut out slightly longer.

First of all, go mad with the trimmings and decorate the front and back of the main peices.

Then attach the wadding, a piece to both the front and back, I used safety pins to hold this together and thenzig-zag stitch it in place.

Then I pinned the front and back right sides together, I put a loop of ribbon at the top so that I can hang my tea cosy up when I am not using it.Sew this together, it’s good to use a walking foot if you have one as this is quite thick, it’s not a disaster if you haven’t got one (I haven’t!) just take it slowly. Trim the seam after you’ve done it to remove any bulky wadding. Turn it round the right way.

Pin the lining pieces right sides together, machine stitch around the curved edge leaving the straight edge open.

Slip the lining inside the main piece, it should be longer so that you can fold the edge up twice to neaten the bottom, machine sew in place, this adds another decorative stripe to the bottom of the tea cosy.

Thats it, pop it on your tea pot and admire your handiwork, I’m not sure I want to give mine away now, it looks great on my tea pot!

Happy Sewing!