The one where the Chertsey Ladies played with insulating materials

Earlier in the week I created some samples for today's lesson: pot holders and a water bottle cozy.  I also made a microwavable fabric soup bowl  (it does make sense really!) from this tutorial, thank you Kathy.

Two ladies decided to make oven gloves, and the others went for Kathy's fabric bowl.  I didn't get any 'this-is-what-we-made' photos as we got slightly sidetracked by an unusual version of Show & Tell . . . which was started by a discussion on mastectomies!  (No further details are appropriate, but thank you S for your really positive contribution!)

Anyway, I can offer a pic of us all hard at work! (well my 'work' is teaching and therefore talking - the others *are* creating!)

And I can tell you that this fabric donated by my lovey Uncle Trygve and his wife Hilde was VARY popular

 I loved it too - thank you both for ALL the fabrics xx

The one where I use Insul-Shine

Carrying on from yesterday's post where I use Insul-Bright, I am now using Insul-Shine.

I got a free sample pack of this at Festival of quilts - Thank you The Warm Company! (see this poster that they had in their stall offering a freebie if you email them)

However, there aren't a lot of suggestions on the internet: Mr Google has very few ideas a to what exactly we should DO with Insul-Bright, so I though'd I'd have a go myself.

It keeps hot things hot, and cold things cold.  I have a yard (which is amazing, thank you Warm Company) but I could have as many as 12 ladies on Friday, so I cant suggest lunch bags or similar as there wont be enough to go round.

So I thought I'd made a cold water cozy.

I cut a rectangle 6½ x 9 inches to go round the bottle, and then had to dust off primary school maths to work out the circumference of the base:

C = 2 π R which ends up with R = 1.43 and therefore C = 2.86

So I cut a 3" circle from the spaceman stuff, and cut the same again from fabric. The Insul-Shine is already attached to wadding so it's fairly simple.

Join both rectangles into a short fat tube right sides together (ie two rectangles = 2 tubes) (you could leave an opening for turning in the Insul-Shine tube)

Attached circles to the base of each (RST) and remember to say Thank You to the person who invented Wonder Clips!

Turn the outer tube right sides out, and tuck it into the inner tube (if you want a strap now is the time to add it)

Clip the top edges together but just stitch half closed

Turn through the hole and arrange (the bottle may help push everything into place)

Fill with a bottle of frozen water and admire!

(I'm testing mine now to see how long it keeps the water frozen.  If it's too good at its job I'll freeze HALF a bottle then top it up with cold water when I go out so I'll have cold water to drink straight away)

PDF & printable version available here