Donna Wilson’s Mitten Kitten phone cosy

Guess what I’m doing today? Go on, you’ll never guess…

Crafts!

I know right? Me? Crafts?

Today I’m going to show you how to make a Donna Wilson Mitten Kitten phone cosy, as part of a blog tour for Donna’s new book – Creative Creatures. If you are a crafty type person, you will love this book. If you’re not a crafty type person you’re still very welcome to read the post and have a laugh at my expense. 

So, first off, you need to gather your materials. Donna says you need:

• Fabric, such as from an old jumper, in two colours or patterns. I didn’t really want to cut up more than one jumper, so our phone cosy is all one colour.
• A ruler. (I just guessed and it seemed to go OK.)
• Pen. (Not sure what this was for as I didn’t use one. See ruler above probably.)
• Scissors. (I did use these.)
• Pins. (Hmm… I didn’t use these either. Perhaps all of this corner cutting explains my usual lack of success with crafts.)
• Needle and thread. (Yes!)
• Felt
• Glue

I also had buttons, as the crafty shop I went in didn’t have any black or white felt for the eyes. Seriously, what kind of craft shop has every colour in the rainbow but not black or white?

Take two pieces of fabric, lay them on top of each other, and pin the corners. Lay the phone on top of the layers and cut the fabric so that it is double the width of the phone and has a 1cm border all the way around. Sew the two layers together along the bottom edge.

Open out the fabric so the sewn edge is in the centre, fold the fabric along the longest edge with the seam on the inside and sew again on the longest edge, forming a tube.

Turn the tube so that the longest seam is at the centre. The top half is the lining fabric and the bottom is the outer fabric. Sew along the bottom edge of the tube and then turn the tube inside out so that it’s the right way round with the seams on the outside. Sew together the open end and then push the lining down into the outer fabric to create the body of your phone cosy.

Now make the ears by gluing triangles of felt onto triangles of your original fabric and sewing them on.

And then finally, either glue on your felt eyes, or sew on your eye buttons, and embroider lines for the nose, mouth and whiskers. Then your phone cosy is ready to go!

Our phone cosy looks like he might be having a bit of a nap, but Belle seems to like him and I felt very proud of myself at the end.