You know my hugely nebulous plans to start up a great fabric empire to rival Libertys?

Well, in an attempt to make them less nebulous and more concrete, I’ve given myself a deadline to have my Etsy shop up and running and actually stocked with things that I’ve made.

(Note the careful way I’m not sharing the actual date of this deadline with you, just in case I don’t make it…)

The first product I want to have ready to sell is a teapot cosy made with my teapot fabric. (I know! These unexpected yet brilliant connections I make! Clearly the mind of a genius at work.)

Great plans, so far, aren’t they? But then, after a while of thinking what a great product I was going to make, it dawned on me that I haven’t got a clue how to make a teapot cosy.

I examined my Cath Kidston teapot cosy carefully and could see that it was quilted, which immediately struck me as frightening. It also had binding on it. Doubly terrifying. I didn’t really know how to attempt either of those things.

But then, while having a little ramble around Twitter, I came across Saturday Sewing Session (www.saturdaysewingsession.co.uk). They have London-based sewing classes and, oh, what’s that I see? A whole entire afternoon class on sewing teapot cosies, including learning to quilt and applique.

[Random interjection here: I don’t quite feel like I’ve got the point of Twitter, yet. Am I the only one? I signed up a while ago, but haven’t yet shaken off the feeling that I’m just shouting into a void whenever I post anything. Does anyone really care about my picture of some ferrets about to have a race at a county fair, or should I save such chat for Facebook? Answers on a postcard, please. Or a 140 character tweet…]

So last Saturday, I hit the well-heeled neighbourhood of Chelsea and sewed myself this little beauty.

Speaking with absolutely no modesty at all, I say isn’t it quite the prettiest tea cosy you’ve ever seen?

First, we learnt how to quilt the outside covers. As is the way with most things in life, something I thought was going to be really complicated was extremely simple. In this case, it was just as straightforward as sewing a straight line.

The clever bit was in the use of a little sewing machine quilting bar, that meant you spaced all of your lines perfectly…

Then, we put the pieces together and I was slightly amused to realise that the construction was exactly the same as the method I’d used for my egg cosies at Easter. And there I was thinking I’d invented that all by myself! Okay, the red lining isn’t the perfect match for the gorgeous outside fabric, but it was the closest there.

We were meant to be appliqueing something onto the front of the cosy as well, but by the time I’d done my quilting, I knew that I didn’t want anything else going onto such an elegant fabric (does anyone recognise it, by the way? I absolutely adored it, but the person teaching my class wasn’t sure where they’d got it from…). So, I just tried out a bit of applique on a piece of calico instead.

Clearly, I was having a good sewing day, because this came out wonderfully as well:

Actually, maybe it was something in the air of that studio, because I can never sew this neatly at home…

So, a very first teapot cosy. This won’t be sold, but used by me for all my teapot cosying needs. Actually, I think the shape of this one is a bit too tall and not wide enough, so I’ll make a new pattern when I make the ones for my shop.

So, what do you think? Would you part with your hard-earned cash for something like this?!

Related articles:

• Take a look at my teapot fabric, or other mainly nautical fabrics I’ve made.
• I love this floral fabric I’ve used for the cosy, but then I do have a penchant for florals. I’ve even done a round up of my top five floral fabrics.

Linking up at Keeping it Simple Crafts, Lines Across, Sew Can Do and Serenity Now. Head over to see what others have been up to this week.