raccoon week: felt coffee cozy tutorial

today i'm excited to kick off the impromptu "blank is the new black" series...

...featuring raccoons!!

i'll have a raccoon tutorial for you every day this week, thanks to some fabulous bloggy friends who love raccoons (felt ones, at least) as much as i do! of course, the fact that they're all slightly off their rockers wonderfully creative ladies helps too. we'll all be using a variation of the raccoon template i used for my raccoon felt needle book and raccoon felt ornament tutorials.

visiting this week will be... Jane of Buzzmills, Jill of Made With Moxie, Kelley of casa crafty, Jennet of Feathered Nest Studio, and Erin of Just Plain Lovely!

to get the raccoon fun started, i'm sharing the tutorial for this raccoon felt coffee cozy (download the pdf pattern here):

materials needed:
felt (three colors)
coordinating embroidery floss (i used aurifil 28 wt cotton thread)
scissors, hand-stitching needle, water soluble marker

1. cut out all pattern pieces.

2. place pattern piece A on top of pattern piece B, both right side facing up, and pin.

3. whipstitch around all openings in the top layer as shown.

4. whipstitch remaining pieces (eyes and nose) on top of outer layer as shown.

5. trim piece B so that edges match up with piece A.

6. with wrong side of coffee cozy facing up, trim the ends of piece B so that they fall 1/4" inside the edges of piece A.

7. with right side of coffee cozy facing up, mark lines to show 1/4" seam allowance on right edge of both pieces A and B (shown above).

8. match left edge of piece B with the line you just drew on piece A. pin to hold pieces together, and whipstitch along seam.

9. repeat step 8 with piece A, taking care to bury thread ends in between layers.

10. get yourself a hot cup of joe and enjoy!

if you make a felt coffee cozy from this tutorial, please share pics in the imagine gnats flickr group. pattern and tutorial are for personal use only.

happy stitching! (and sipping)