Make Your Own "Cosy-All"

These days everything has a "cosy":

• Starbuck's Cosies... (I have one my friend Elena made for me)
  
• Cell Phone and iPod Cosies... (How else do you keep from scratching the screen?!)
  
• Water Bottle Cosies... (my aunt crochets these to put over the horn of the saddle to hang her water bottle when going horseback riding)
  

It's just a fun little thing that makes your stuff "comfortable". I am pretty sure the term is derived from tea cosy.

Here's the wikipedia definition: A tea cosy (American English tea cozy) is a cover for a teapot,^[1] traditionally made of cloth or wool, which is used to insulate the tea, keeping it warm while it brews.

Like I was saying, lots of things have cosies so...

What about Cover-Alls?!

Norma Kennedy, the winner of our spring challenge made a sort of cosy for her address book using fabric. I have been thinking of covering a Cover-All with felt for sometime and now I finally did it!


This is just the Cover-All without the book inside because I wanted to show that the whole Cover-All is truly covered with felt (and it isn't glued on).


Want to make one yourself? Here's how:

Gather the following supplies:

• Sewing Machine
• Felt
• Cover-All
• Felt Flowers
• Buttons
• Craft Thread
• Needle
• Scissors
• Pinking Shears
• Paint for distressing
  

1. Lay two layers of felt under the Cover-All and trim to be one inch larger than the Cover-All on all sides.


2. Using scissors (here I used pinking shears), snip the fabric where the envelope on the back of the Cover-All opens for the plastic sheet to slide in and out of the Cover-All. Do this on the top and the bottom of the cover.




3. Place the Cover-All to the side.

4. On one of the felt sheets cut from the notch you snipped on one side to the notch on the other side. This will be the inside of the Cover-All and will form the slot for that plastic sheet to slide into when you make your book. Do not cut BOTH sheets, just one.


5. Place the Cover-All between the two sheets of felt (the one solid piece on the outside and the cut in half piece on the inside). Sew closed with a sewing machine.

6. Trim the excess felt from the Cover-All using pinking shears. This is what the inside will look like once it is all sewn and trimmed:

Here's the slot on the inside where the plastic piece can slip into the back of the Cover-All:


7. Slip the Cosy-All off the Cover-All so you can embroider designs on the cover. I used a bit of paint on a foam brush to dry brush the book for a distressed effect. When you've finished, slip the Cosy-All back on the Cover-All and decorate the book inside.

Here are the exact supplies I used:

• 8x8 Craft Color Cover-All by Zutter
  
• Felt from the remnant section at Joann's (good place to get deals on fabric for scrapping!)
  
• Felt Sheets from Joann's
• Sizzix Big Shot & Dies
• Joann's Pinking Shears
• 3" Doll Needle from Joann's
  
• Folk Art Craft Paint
• Felt Flowers by K & Co
• Sequins from Athenian
• Buttons by American Crafts
• Craft Thread from Joann's
  

I embroidered some swirls onto the cover and then stitched on some felt flowers. I used a Sizzix Big Shot to diecut some flowers from sheets of felt available from the craft store. The other flowers came in a pack, pre-assembled with adhesive on the back. I carefully peeled them away from the adhesive so that when I sewed them on, the adhesive would not gum up my needle.


To attach the little sequin flowers, I stitched up from the bottom of the sequin through the hole in the center. Then I tied a double knot (or square knot) in the center. And then I threaded the needle back down through the hole in the center of the sequin and tied the string off.

Happy Creating!! And may all your books be "cozy"!