Coffee cup covers

As well as all the scraps in my stash that were woven cotton, or jersey knits, from making clothes for the grandchildren, I had a few odd bits of double-sided ready quilted fabric. Then I found this great free pattern for a coffee cozy from See Kate Sew. I had been idly thinking for some time of how to make our re-usable coffee cups more hands-free - we are mostly using them when with the family, and it is very useful to have spare hands.

See Kate Sew's Coffee Cozy is just that - a cozy - and it isn't hands-free in its original design. But the template was perfect. To find out how I adapted it to make hands free coffee cup carriers, read on!

See Kate Sew's template was perfect for my needs. It's a simple curved shape, cut on the fold. It looks like this. But if you want a free copy, go to Kate's web site to download it so you get the correct size and instructions.

In fact, for my hands free version, I had to make the template a little deeper. I wanted it deep enough that I could overlap the lid edge with it. I didn't want the lid flipping off in mid-carrying, by it being pushed against the top edge of the cozy by the weight of the coffee. If you look at the red one above, you'll see it has a very deep top binding. That's because I cut my (only) scrap of red tartan on the original cutting lines of the template, before I realsied it would be too short for our reusable cups. So I had to attach a little bit extra and cover the join with bias tape. I'd learnt by the second blue denim one that I needed to add about 3/4" to the depth.

So if you are going to use the template, first compare it with the coffee cup if you want to do more than use it as a cozy, in case you also need to enlarge it.

Of course, you don't have to use double-sided ready-quilted fabric, that was just what I had, and I thought it would be perfect. But you could use two or three layers of thinner fabric as well, just as See Kate Sew does.

Once I'd cut out the fabric, the rest was pretty easy. You can see the whole construction here. 

• I bound all the edges with bias binding.
• I added four pieces of Velcro, two on the inside and two on the outside, positioned so that I could surround the cup firmly but not too tightly.
• On the blue one, I added a little appliqué  snail to make it a little more interesting (see next picture)
• I measured and cut about a metre of webbing tape, and heat-sealed the ends so they wouldn't fray. Then I attached it as a shoulder strap to the two sides. I pinned it with the Velcro done up round the cup, so I could check that two points where the strap joined were exactly halfway round and opposite each other. As you can see above, i sewed them on with a box and an 'x' to secure the ends firmly inside.
• Finally (and again with the Velcro done up) I attached a wide bit of elastic to the bottom, so it would span the bottom of the cup. I just wanted to be sure the cup couldn't slide out the bottom.

And here's the finished handsfree coffee holder!

This fits me perfectly as a cross-body strap. My husband finds this a bit short for him, so the cup hangs tilted, and he prefers anyway to wear his over just one shoulder. But I suggest if you plan to copy this idea, you make it to measure, don't just assume a 1 metre strap is what you need!

Now we had two nice coffee cup holders, all ready to take out to the parks and gardens with our families, leaving us hands-free to manage children's discarded coats and all the other paraphenalia associated with a day out with small people. And the following day we were all in lockdown! So they haven't had an outing in earnest yet, But one day, they will! I can already see I'll be asked to make more.