Booze + Cozy = Coozie

Hi.

It's summer time. Summer time means sitting outside, grilling, biking, and (for me) drinking some delicious beers with my buds.

But sometimes my hand gets a bit too chilly when holding a frosty beverage, and the can starts to perspire, and I kinda wish it could match my outfit... haha... Sometimes a girl (or guy!) needs a coozie. A lovely, felt, hand-stitched coozie.... Are you sold on this idea yet? Want to know how to make one? Lucky you.

And remember, soda cans need some love too! So even if you're not the beer drinking type, you can still enjoy this craftiness.

Okay, let's start:

Here's what you'll need:

-2 or more pieces of felt in nice colors (I prefer a nice wool/acrylic blend)

-Embroidery thread

-A sewing needle

-Scissors

-Ruler

-A 12oz can of your preferred delicious beverage. Don't crack it open until the end! You'll want to be able to use it for reference, this is much easier to do if the can is closed (trust me, I accidentally got a lap full of Tecate once... it's true).

The first thing to do is decide which colors you want for the inside and outside. I chose light pink for the outside and yellow for the inside. I like pastels...

Now cut out a rectangle in each piece of felt. The outside color should be 9" x 4" and the outside color should be 9" x 4.5".

Now fold the inside piece of felt in half and sew a running stitch about a 1/4" in from the edge. Start at one end and finish about 1/2 an inch from the opposite end.

Now's a good time to do any embellishing you want to do on the outside piece of felt. I decided to cut out a heart. I stitched it on and then freehand embroidered the word "beer!" onto it.

Here's a close-up. Not my best embroidery of all time but it gets the point across.

Now take your inside piece of felt and turn it inside out so that the stitching faces the inside of the tube. Place the outside felt over this and pin it in place so that the extra felt from the inside piece sticks out over the top.

See how the sides of the pink felt don't overlap, they just touch? And they meet right over the seam from the yellow felt? See that? Okay, let's keep moving along.

Pick out a nice color of embroidery thread and do an X stitch from the bottom of your coozie all the way to the top of your outside piece of felt. You're bringing everything together now and it should look something like this:

Now fold over that inside layer and use some more nice X stitches to secure that in place like this:

I keep the can of beer handy to pop in and out and make sure my coozie is about the right size. And you're done now! I prefer not to put a bottom piece on in case I'm drinking from a tall can but it would be super easy to do and I'm sure you can figure it out on your own.

Now go make a few more for when you have company over because your friends will be super jealous if you're the only person at your place with a sweet coozie.

Party Time! Excellent!