Quilted Hot Water Bottle Cozy

The evenings are getting chilly in our house and cold feet at bedtime are the norm. The most awesome new thing is our hot water bottle! However, those rubber things can get pretty darn hot. I decided to whip up a cozy for it. In the amount of time it took to boil the water for the bottle, I sewed up this cozy.

First of all, I bought the hot water bottle from this eBay store. It came in no time. I'm on my way to buying another one since Aidan has claimed this one! I need to find a different source -one of these started leaking at the valve and the eBay store wasn't of much help.

I looked through my stash to figure out what to cozy up the hot water bottle in and figured that the most perfect thing would be a scrap of leftover quilt. This quilt was made by my great-grandmother and it saw many better days. A few years ago I made pillows out of it for my siblings for Christmas but never made one for myself. The leftover scrap was just big enough for the cozy. Yeah - I never understood the orange yarn ties but now I dig them. I also kind of heart the rip on the cozy. A well worn quilt makes me happy.

The instructions are easy. Put your hot water bottle on your fabric or a piece of paper and trace the outside, adding an inch on all sides. When you get to the neck of the bottle where it narrows, keep drawing your line straight up rather than gathering in at the neck. This way you can easily scoot your bottle in. End your marking a little shy of the top of the bottle. You won't want your fabric to get in the way when you are filling the bottle up.

Sew up the sides and bottom of your bag using 3/8" seam. Turn under the top of the bag towards the inside about 1/2" and sew around.

Now there are many thing you can do next - use elastic, make a drawstring channel. What I did was sew the cording I used onto the back right in the middle. I did this for two reasons - 1) I was short on fabric. 2) I was short on time as I wanted to put this to bed with Aidan.

I tied one end of the cording to the cap of bottle so the cap doesn't get lost when filling it up.

This would a perfect holiday gift if you dress it up a bit or even if you use a cherished family quilt that didn't win any beauty contests.