Tea Bag Tea Cozy - Part Two

Welcome back! The tea bag paper tea cozy how-to continues....

Here you can see the lady's dress of burn-out velvet and lace. The cap and yarn ball are both from the knitted cap I upcycled to make this. And her chiffon scarf hair is a thrift store scarf I wore once to hold up my very 1950s ponytail during a retro dress-up.

Once the front was completed, I traced and cut a back piece from a lovely plaid wool boucle jacket remnant. I decided to create a lining that was padded rather than pad the outer layers and then insert the lining as most directions require. I did this because the lining I wanted to use was a cotton sheet from the 1970s or 80s and the fabric is not very heavy. Stitching it to some flannel gave it some heft.

I stacked the front and back fabrics right sides together and stitched along the stitching lines. To reduce any possible puckering, I clipped little Vs into the edges. I turned this carefully right side out and pushed out all the edges carefully. I was surprised at how durable the paper was. It never threatened to tear at all.

 

Then I cut the sheet and flannel pieces and faux-quilted the sheet along the lines already in the print of the fabric, just the dark outlines. Stacking the lining - flannel, sheet, sheet (right sides together), flannel - I stitched these together, trimmed the seam allowance closer to the stitching, and pressed the seam open.

 

 

 

The lining was slipped into the outer shell and tacked in place by hand along the seams at the top and near the bottom edge.

I decided not to attach a bound edge and simply trimmed the whole thing along template lines, turned the raw edges of the lining and shell inward all around and stitched around to finish the lower edge.

I added the story written out on tea bag paper to the back and used a manly sort of bow tie I repurposed off another project of mine for the top.

And now it's time for tea. This cozy fits perfectly over both my 4 cup tea pots.