Not long ago, I received a big bag of felt from my Grandpa's belongings. To say he was an avid quilter would be putting it lightly, but that's another story. He had an enormous amount of fabric that he had collected over the years. I aquired only a small amount of what he had and still my closet is overflowing. So every now and then I would take out this bag of felt, look over the contents and ponder what sort of things to create with it. Then I would get distracted with some other project and pack it all back in again. Needless to say it has been sitting in my closet for months and finally I decided on what to make with it: A Reusable Coffee Sleeve.
You see, I work in a coffee shop (ahem, starbucks), and on a daily basis we probably go through hundreds of the cardboard coffee sleeves. While those are recyclable and made from recycled material, when you add up all the other stores around the world, that's probably more like
millions (maybe even
billions) of those cardboard sleeves eventually getting tossed into the trash. That's a lot of waste!
So why not have your own reusable coffee sleeve that keeps those things out of the landfills and also adds a personal touch to your daily brew? They are simple and easy to make. In fact, I used the cardboard sleeve as a template for the basic pattern. It ensures a snug fit that will accomodate almost all sizes of cups. Once you have that, you can embellish as you please. You can hand stitch it together, as I did the one pictured here, or you can machine stitch (examples to be posted soon).
Unless you have really thick felt, I recommend using two layers. That will give extra insulation from the heat of the coffee, and an added bonus is you can mix and match the colors to create a really cool design. You can embroider designs or add other layers of felt to make it your own. Even beads or buttons or other appliques would be cute. For this one I embroidered my coworkers' name onto a small piece of felt and then stitched it onto the outer layer. Then I used a blanket stitch to attach the two layers. If you plan to stitch on your personalized art, do so before attaching the two layers together. That way the stitches won't show through to the inside fabric. Have fun and happy sipping!
